


My Guiding Star Always Is

by luchia



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Harry Potter Setting, F/M, Gen, Legilimency, M/M, Physical identity issues, Shapeshifters are very confusing psychologically, stalking is not love
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-02-21
Updated: 2013-05-04
Packaged: 2017-12-03 04:36:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 7
Words: 33,127
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/694223
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/luchia/pseuds/luchia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Eames is a teenaged Slytherin metamorphmagus in love with a violent Hufflepuff named Arthur. After meeting a brilliant tricky potions genius, a dangerously sharp Ravenclaw who might be too clever for her own good, and her obviously poorly sorted Gryffindor-but-should-be-a-Ravenclaw boyfriend in detention, they end up creating Illegal Legilimency Club. Mayhem, conspiracies, mortal peril, physical identity issues, school dances, thievery, violence, camaraderie, mind-reading, insanity, love, and inception ensue.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Arthur and Eames first meet in detention. 

Well, Arthur and Eames-as-Marcia-Robertson had met on the Hogwarts Express before they were even sorted and Eames-as-Bertie-Snorkins has been an acquaintance of Arthur’s for two and a half years ever since, but Arthur and _Eames_ meet in detention their third year. There are five of them in the room, but Eames can’t stop staring at Arthur because he’s kind of had a crush on the son of a bitch ever since Eames-as-Marcia-Robertson got punched in the face for taking some little girl’s chocolate frog and making her cry. One wail, and Arthur and his fist were there. Considering Marcia Robertson had been an early bloomer of a fifteen-year-old at the time, Eames couldn’t help but be impressed.

That is, he was impressed until the sorting, when Arthur became a _Hufflepuff_ of all things. And the guy didn’t even look surprised. Eames had expected Gryffindor, what with punching a fifteen-year-old girl in the face (or maybe a Slytherin, come to think of it), but no, Arthur was a Hufflepuff. And Eames was a Slytherin. They could never be together.

So, if he’s been kind of stalking him occasionally as Eames-as-Bertie-Snorkins the narcoleptic Hufflepuff for the past three years, it’s completely acceptable as a Slytherin. It’s his duty to be sneaky, and nobody could sneak quite like a metamorphmagus.

But Eames meeting Arthur as _Eames_? It’s thrilling, and absolutely terrifying, and he has no idea what to do, so thirteen-year-old Eames blurts out, “I’m shocked a Hufflepuff had the balls to do anything that merits detention. What’d you do, smile too much?”

Arthur is not a smiley kind of Hufflepuff.

“I broke someone’s arm,” Arthur tells him, never even looking up from his meticulous Ancient Runes homework.

“With his hands,” one of the other boys adds from where he’s sitting intimately close to the sole female in the room, and yes, that sounds more like the Arthur that Eames (kind of) knows. “Apparently that’s worse than using a wand. What’d you do to get detention?”

“Impersonated a professor,” Eames says. It’s true, of course, but they don’t need to know he was wandering around as Eames-as-Professor-Vector and deducting points from every house but his own. Not even his housemates or the professors (excluding the headmistress and, as of now, Vector) know he’s a metamorphmagus, and he’d prefer to keep it that way, thank you very much. He smiles. “You?”

Which is how he meets Dom Cobb, who is actually Arthur’s older cousin, Cobb’s girlfriend Mal, who seems too creative for her own good, and Yusuf, the Ravenclaw potions genius who got in trouble for making ‘recreational hallucinogens’. Cobb and Mal, it turns out, are in for breaking into the restricted section of the library seven times.

“Have you ever heard of legilimency?” Mal asks excitedly, and the room’s answer is a resounding no (aside from Cobb, who looks so smitten with his girlfriend that little cartoon hearts are going to explode out of his eyes any second now). “It’s mind reading. Well, that’s the basic idea, but it’s-”

“Your assignment for detention,” Professor Browning says the minute he swings the door open, “is to write a solid essay on what you want to be when you grow up, and why _delinquency_ is never going to get you there.”

“Can’t I just scrub the floor?” Eames asks.

“That’s what house elves are for,” Browning says, and looms over then for the rest of the night.

Eames writes that he wants to be the Minister of Magic and that delinquency will clearly get him nowhere and he’s now aware how horrible a mistake he’s been making with how he’s gone about living, and spends the whole time wondering what it’d be like to know what Arthur was thinking.

 

They all start hanging out after that. Secretly, of course, since inter-house fraternization isn’t exactly readily acceptable, particularly in Slytherin. Dropping ‘and Yusuf was there’ into any necessary explanations smoothes things over, but after a while the Slytherins look ready to start an intervention, because drugs aren’t the answer. Deviousness is.

Honestly, though? Eames is starting to think he really does need an intervention, because he is addicted to being an idiot around Arthur. It’s more an addiction to the part where he’s _around Arthur_ , and the idiot bit is one of those horrible life-ruining side-effects. He’s actually started knocking Bertie Snorkins out, just to have more time to watch Arthur be…Arthur-y.

And after the incident with Charybdis Hollyhock, it gets even worse.

See, Eames-as-Bertie-Snorkins was just walking back to the Hufflepuff dorm with Arthur and some others. Of course, the problem was that if Eames-as-Bertie-Snorkins went in, when the real Bertie showed up there’d be a bit of confusion. This is why Snorkins has a reputation as a forgetful moron, since Eames-as-Bertie-Snorkins often ‘remembers’ he needs to grab something, leaves, and comes back to the dormitory without it, and without remembering he needed it.

Eames-as-Bertie-Snorkins had forgotten his Potions textbook, so he headed back.

And there, waiting around the corner, was Char Hollyhock.

What you need to understand about Char Hollyhock is that he’s _huge_ , and hates _everyone_. Particularly little narcoleptic third-year Hufflepuffs. All Eames-as-Bertie-Snorkins is going to be able to do is scream, and get beaten. And then Eames is going to have to sit twelve seats down from Hollyhock in the morning and act like nothing happened.

But something does happen. Something as in Arthur coming around the corner, taking one look at Hollyhock’s looming form and poor little Eames-as-Bertie-Snorkins pressed against the wall looking terrified, and with a flick of his wand and an _incarcerous_ , Hollyhock was blinking at Eames-as-Bertie-Snorkins and wrapped up in thick ropes so tight that he was cocooned. But Arthur wasn’t done. Oh, no. As Hollyhock slowly starts falling to the floor, Arthur whips out a _mobilicorpus_ and Hollyhock’s floating in midair like some levitating mummy.

“Leave him alone from now on, Hollyhock,” Arthur commands calmly. “Leave all of the Hufflepuffs alone. I’ll be angry if you don’t.”

And Arthur just drops him. The ropes disappear, and poor Char’s just staring up at Arthur. Eames-as-Bertie-Snorkins can’t blame him, really, since he’s doing the exact same thing.

“Let’s go get your book, Bertie,” Arthur says, and Eames-as-Bertie-Snorkins realizes he’s got to get the hell out of here because his emotions are messed up in so many ways that there’s no chance his Eames-as-Bertie-Snorkins morph can last much longer without him concentrating on it and it is hard to concentrate when he feels ready to swoon and act like an idiot. Bertie Snorkins doesn’t swoon or act like an idiot around Arthur.

So, he improvises.

“I’m gonna throw up,” Eames-as-Bertie-Snorkins blurts out, and runs as hard as he can towards the nearest bathroom so he can stare at himself in the mirror. Well, kind of. Bertie Snorkins’ eyes are wide and terrified, and Eames wants so badly to go back and just…just _something_ , but Eames-as-Bertie-Snorkins can’t, and Eames-as-Eames can’t, not without jeopardizing their team’s slow and steady journey towards the badass art of legilimency.

And that’s why Eames gets the horrible, beautiful idea of inventing Arthur a girlfriend.

 

He doesn’t do anything about it for a hell of a long time, of course. It’s mostly because during their last month of their third year, Mal manages to look Yusuf in the eye and get _maybe adding kool-aid_ out of his head. It’s the only progress they’ve made, but it’s an addictive, thrilling thought (well, not the _actual_ thought, the fact Mal read the thought) that sinks into their veins in ways they’re probably too young to be allowed.

And then it’s summer, leading to letters and independent research and learning to write everything at least four times, usually five so he could keep one for himself and follow along when they started quoting his own research at him. Eames has never claimed to be a scholar, but his mother’s library has vaguely useful information and he’s always disgustingly happy to get even vaguely appreciative mentions in anything Arthur writes.

Really, he does need an intervention.

Eames also starts reading psychology. They all start specializing their research – gets it done faster, and you can just ask an expert instead of having basic knowledge; pretty clever, really – and Eames learns how to copy the inside of a person just as well as he can copy the outside. Yusuf, unsurprisingly, takes the chemical aspects. Mal and Cobb take dreams and memories, respectively, and learn philosophy and poetry and architecture and all the shit Eames is really glad he doesn’t need to know intimately. And Arthur? He specializes in occlumency, the art of _not_ having your mind read.

Bastard.

Legilimency isn’t as much of an obsession for Eames as it is for the others; it’s more of a passion, like it’s the final facet of understanding a person so well he could become them and their own mother wouldn’t know. He has a lurking suspicion that Arthur’s the same way, wanting to understand and learn legilimency just so it can’t be done to him (or anyone else he thinks he needs to punch people in the face for). Yusuf, too – he wants to see what he can do to someone’s mind, not just read it.

Yusuf can be far creepier than any Slytherin in the school. Eames is so proud to be his friend.

When Eames isn’t researching legilimency or psychology, he’s getting strange looks from his older (by eleven years) sister for studying ridiculously old love advice books and studying hair and nails and everything that could make an ideal girlfriend for Arthur. The more he reads of _Ways for Witches to Woo Their Wizard_ , the more work he realizes it’s going to be, and Eames takes pride in doing his job well.

And research is important, so Eames starts dating girls because he realizes he really has no idea what the hell a girl’s naked body looks like, let alone feels like, or _how_ it feels. He knows the anatomy, of course (honestly, what self-respecting metamorphmagus hasn’t tried to grow wings?), but there’s a difference between knowing where things are and knowing how they feel. He spends more time getting girls off in the name of science than any other fourteen-year-old boy (usually while morphed into a seventeen-year-old boy during summer) in the history of the entire planet.

His continuing investigations certainly increase his popularity at school, but Cobb and Mal and Arthur start frowning at him when they’re studying. He doesn’t really blame them, since he occasionally looks himself in the eye and has to wonder if Arthur would like him even if he managed to morph himself into the perfect girlfriend. He does like the girls and the girls seem to have a good time, but, well. After the fourth floor bathroom incident, he stops.

The fourth floor bathroom incident was pretty straightforward. Eames had wanted to check his progress, so he’d morphed his body into a girl and was about ready to start toying with himself when Yusuf comes into the bathroom to see a completely male Eames head on top of a very obviously female (and half undressed) body.

“Is this a bad time?” Yusuf asks, politely looking Eames in the eye before he remembers Eames is a budding legilimens just like Yusuf, which makes the potions geek look straight at Eames’ big perky breasts. “I have no idea what’s going on.”

Eames morphs himself back as fast as he can, which probably looks a little disgusting, but not to Yusuf. He just stares like it’s the most amazing thing he’s ever seen in his life. “I’m not a girl, I’m a metamorphmagus.”

Yusuf doesn’t look convinced. “If you’re a metamorphmagus, you could identify as male but technically be born a female who belongs in a male body.”

“Would it even matter? I think I’m a boy, so I’m a boy,” Eames says, words sharper than he’d wanted them to be, but anyone would be pissed off when their big dark secret is revealed and the concept’s not only accepted but almost _ignored_. 

“Alright, then why were you morphed into a girl?” Yusuf asks.

And, hell, it’s the night for telling secrets and giving Yusuf years of blackmail material, so Eames actually tells him about The Girlfriend Plan.

“Well that explains a lot,” Yusuf comments. “Like why you never leave Arthur alone unless you’re off using women; it’s all to comfort yourself for your hopeless crush.” He frowns. “I thought you were just a lecherous asshole, not an embarrassingly lovesick asshole.”

“It is pretty embarrassing,” Eames admits. He doesn’t object to being called an asshole, since he is one. “I considered stealing a tie of his, just to…I don’t know. Hold it. Not even _do_ anything with it, just to have something he owns.”

“That’s pretty pathetic, and a little bit creepy,” Yusuf says, and somehow still manages to sound friendly. “Why don’t you try to, I don’t know, be nice to him?” He pauses. “And for god’s sake, don’t steal a tie, he’d kill you.”

“I am envious of a hideous yellow thing he hangs around his neck,” Eames declares, horrified.

“Well, he’s already got you wrapped around his pinky, so I think you have more in common than you think.” Yusuf frowns at him. “I thought you were just an immature womanizing bastard. I might have preferred that.”

“Fuck you too,” Eames mutters into the arms he has wrapped around his knees.

Yusuf actually laughs, the bastard. “I’ll make you a deal. If you get Arthur to outright state he doesn’t like men, I’ll help you.”

“So you’re just waiting for me to know I have no chance, and then when my dream is crushed, you’ll help. Very classy. Very helpful, Yusuf, thank you.”

But it’s a deal.

 

As helpful as it’d be to have a mad potions master (unofficial, but even the potions professor admits Yusuf’s a genius), Eames _can’t_ ask. He freezes up, or he ends up changing his question at the last second, or he finds himself just kicking Arthur’s chair instead. He seeks out Arthur, just to piss him off.

Eames starts to study the shit out of occlumency. Kind of messes up their specialization deal, but by now he’s good enough at analyzing people’s minds to at least get their surface personality down. He can afford the distraction.

Meanwhile, Eames-as-Bertie-Snorkins ends up asking Arthur all the questions Eames needs answered and won’t break his heart. Arthur’s preferred characteristics in a woman start rolling out: intelligent, clever in that whip-quick retort sort of way, brunette or blonde, funny, and frank. Eames assumes the ‘drop dead gorgeous’ requirement is implicit.

He’s starting to feel comfortable enough with genuinely designing Arthur’s girlfriend when, during one of the team’s after-curfew nights in Cobb and Mal’s favorite abandoned fourth floor room, Mal asks “What do you think obliviate or the imperius curse would do to someone’s mind?”

Cobb looks shocked, and Eames can’t blame him. He kicks Arthur’s chair to make him look up from his newest ridiculously huge book and pay attention.

“The imperius curse is an unforgivable curse, Mal,” Cobb reminds her. “I don’t even want to _consider_ studying it, as interesting as it-”

“It’s _not_ interesting,” Arthur interrupts sharply. “They both rewrite the brain completely, now let’s move on and not even consider this, okay?”

“Obliviate could be interesting, though,” Yusuf says, and Eames and Arthur glare at him. “What? It’s not unforgiveable. We can try it on lab mice.”

“You can’t read a mouse’s mind,” Mal says, already squinting in that way that always makes Eames think she’s thinking so fast that she’s seeing her nerves firing. “But we could perfect it with mice, and then move on to each other.”

Eames stares at her. “I don’t care how beautiful and intelligent you are, Mal, I’m not letting you fuck around with my memory.” He has enough trouble keeping them from reading his memories already, or at least making sure they only read Eames-as- _Eames_ memories if they get through; the thought of losing control of his past is _terrifying_.

“Besides, don’t you have OWLs to study for?” Arthur reminds them. “You barely have time to keep up with legilimency. Wait until next year, and if you still want to, we could try it.”

“Maybe,” Eames tacks on.

Mal is smiling at Arthur, using her doting, loving smile that Cobb usually gets. “You’re such a clever boy, Arthur,” she says, and Arthur starts blushing lightly when she kisses him on the cheek. “Thank you for being our voice of reason.”

Arthur looks down at his book again, almost smiling. “It’s what I’m here for.”

And that’s the moment Eames realizes Mal happens to be a whip-quick, intelligent, funny, frank, and drop dead gorgeous brunette.

“Let’s meet back here in a week, then,” Cobb says, and that’s that. Like usual, they pack up and leave, the occasional offhand comment about independent research being dropped so easily that Eames sometimes forgets how much of a nerd the pursuit of mind-reading has turned them all into. Like usual, Yusuf’s the first out the door, and when Cobb and Mal leave they leave together, even though Ravenclaw Tower and Gryffindor Tower are nowhere near each other.

Eames doesn’t leave before Arthur. He doesn’t make his usual biting comment before walking out. He stands right in front of Arthur as he packs everything up, yellow and black Hufflepuff tie swinging as he covers the truth of their presence. “Do you like Mal?”

“She’s lovely,” Arthur states, and sweeps a bit more dirt back onto the disturbed floor. He always prefers to do things by hand when it comes to secrecy, says that spell-finders won’t pick them up as quickly that way. “And she’s been dating Dom since they realized boys and girls can like each other, so I don’t see why it would matter even if I did.”

“It would matter because eventually one of them will be a good enough legilimens to get it out of your head,” Eames says quietly. “And I don’t know how Cobb would take that, considering he practically breathes only for her.”

Arthur actually looks up at Eames, and his eyes aren’t filled with the usual irritation. In fact, Eames isn’t quite sure what’s looking back at him, but it’s dark and hot and complex and injects flecks of ice into his blood. “Thank you for your concern, Eames,” Arthur says, and turns back to his precise sweeping. “I’d never do anything to hurt someone I care about. I’m impressed you care about them enough to accuse me of wanting to steal my cousin’s girlfriend. Very noble.”

Eames smirks at him. “You have no idea how caring and noble I’m being right now, darling.” Spoiled little Arthur, always expecting people to be as naturally moral as he is. Such a _Hufflepuff_ at the core, no matter how deliciously wrongly sorted he may seem.

Fuck being noble.

“I’ll solve your problem for you, since you’d probably just mope about otherwise,” Eames tells Arthur, collecting his things instead of looking at him. “I’ll get you a girlfriend for next week’s Hogsmeade trip. Take your mind off the unobtainable, eh?”

“ _What?_ ” Arthur hisses out, but Eames is already out the door and doing his best not to run or escape into someone else’s form, someone not as vulnerable as Eames-as-Eames is at the moment.

 

“You’re an idiot,” Yusuf says. “I mean, really. I thought you were just embarrassingly lovesick, but now I’m seeing that you don’t even have that as an excuse. You’re just a moron.”

“But I’m brilliant,” Eames points out, putting the finishing touches on the Evanthe Gibbon he can see on the other side of the mirror. A little darker blonde than he’d originally planned, a softer and less drop-dead kind of beautiful, kinder eyes. “And if I’m so hopeless, why are you helping me?”

Yusuf looks up at him from the fabric he’s somehow managing to brew up. “Pity, maybe.” He sighs. “And to help you keep your secret. God knows what Arthur would do to you if he found out you’ve been stalking him for four years. You’re a horrible person, but you don’t deserve to die for it.”

Eames grins at him. “Yusuf, you old softie. Aren’t you worried about Arthur falling madly in love with his perfect girlfriend?”

“Nope,” Yusuf says, and pulls out what looks like a spice rack. “Now, what color do you want your panties to be?”

 

For the record, Evanthe Gibbons isn’t entirely fake. In fact, there’s an Evanthe Gibbons who is really attending Beauxbatons, is really two and a half months older than Arthur, and did actually live next door to the Eames household until the Gibbons family moved to France. Evanthe just happens to be an insufferable son of a bitch with a huge nose that he likes to stick into other people’s business. Eames-as-Evanthe-Gibbons is everything the real Gibbons isn’t, which is also just about everything Arthur would (hopefully) like.

On the day of her debut, Eames-as-Evanthe-Gibbons is dressed in a simple long-sleeved shirt and knee-length skirt, the cuts of them clean and flattering and stating very clearly that Evanthe knows how to dress beautifully, and isn’t trying today. Casual elegance is the name of the game. Arthur mustn’t think Evanthe is trying to impress him even the slightest bit.

It’s the same reason that drives Eames-as-Evanthe-Gibbons to take one look at Arthur when he sits down uncomfortably in front of her before ignoring him to look around, frown, and finally say, “I thought Eames was coming.”

“He stayed back at the castle to do…something,” Arthur says, not unfriendly, but certainly not welcoming.

Eames-as-Evanthe laughs shortly, shaking her head. “I don’t think I want to know what the _something_ is. Well.” Eames-as-Evanthe takes a deep breath, and looks Arthur in the eye. “I don’t know what he told you about me, but I’m not even interested in dating anyone right now, let alone someone with a crush on someone who isn’t me.”

If Eames didn’t make an obsessive habit of watching Arthur, he wouldn’t know that the slight quirk to his lips means he’s amused. “I’m glad to hear that.”

And, since Eames-as-Evanthe doesn’t know how to interpret that, she’s wary. “Really?”

“Really. I’m not looking to date anyone either,” Arthur says. “But why did you even take the time to come if you didn’t want to be here?”

Eames-as-Evanthe shrugs, smiling slightly. “Because Eames asked me to and Beauxbatons is on its mid-term break, and I finally have a chance to meet the infamous Hufflepuff friend. If even a Slytherin respects you, you’re worth meeting.”

And instead of being flattered, Arthur looks confused. “You think Eames respects me? Are we talking about the same person?”

“Eames may act like an idiot most of the time, but that doesn’t keep him from being a solid, reliable young man,” Eames-as-Evanthe says, frowning. “He told me you’re capable and trustworthy. Those are quite the compliments, coming from someone like him.”

Arthur watches Eames-as-Evanthe for quite a while, expression unreadable, before speaking again. “Have you ever had an impossible crush?”

“God, yes,” Eames-as-Evanthe says before she thinks.

“How do you deal with it?” Arthur asks.

Eames-as-Evanthe, horror of horrors, tells the _truth_. “Christ, I don’t even try to deal with it. I’m a pathetic wretch of a lovesick fool who wants to steal one of his shoelaces just to hold it and think of him.”

Arthur actually _laughs_. It’s honest and abruptly cut off when he realizes he’s laughing at some poor little girl’s hopeless crush, but it’s actual laughter. “Sorry.”

“Oh, no need to apologize,” Eames-as-Evanthe says miserably into her cup of tea. “I know it’s ridiculous and laughable-”

“No, it’s not that,” Arthur says. “I know someone who stole his crush’s favorite sock and did nothing but fondle it, and she was furious because she had only one sock. She ended up searching for it for years. Probably would have been better for both of them if he’d taken the whole pair.”

“But see, that’s why you only take one of a matched pair,” Eames-as-Evanthe tells him, dead serious as her eyes laugh with him. “Because then you know that somewhere, somehow, your crush is looking for it, and therefore looking for _you_ , since you have it. You’re forever linked to each other through theft. It’s very hopelessly romantic.”

“Oh, very. Petty theft is always taken as a sign of devotion,” Arthur says, and Eames-as-Evanthe realizes that dear god, it’s _Eames_ who’s doing the talking now, not Evanthe’s personality, which was precisely calculated to please. And Evanthe’s not getting a single chance to shine, not with how Arthur keeps looking interested in everything Eames-as-Evanthe-as- _Eames_ says.

 _The minute I start to lose his interest_ , Eames swears, _Evanthe is going to be put back into play._

They keep talking, keep half-laughing, keep enjoying each other’s company, and Arthur doesn’t seem to lose interest for a second, not even when Professor Vector comes into the shop to escort all the students back home.

“It was a pleasure meeting you, Evanthe Gibbons,” Arthur says, and god, Eames-as-Evanthe feels like swooning at that small little smile he gives her. “I’ll see you around some time, hopefully, and I wish you the best of luck with your pathetic, hopeless crush.”

“You should write me,” Eames-as-Evanthe says, which wasn’t part of the plan at all. Eames’ plan stretches out all the way to age twenty-one, when the real Evanthe Gibbons is required to come back to England, and he’s planned it with long gaps of absence, and writing to each other was _never_ in the plan. “Beauxbatons students aren’t allowed to send and receive unscheduled mail,” she says, which is a horrible lie, “but Eames can get them to me.”

“By being a wily Slytherin?” Arthur jokes, honest-to-god _jokes_.

“By being considered family correspondence,” Eames-as-Evanthe says, and that jerks Arthur out of his good mood for some reason.

Arthur nods, smiling politely in his smileless way, and walks out the door without even saying goodbye.

Bastard.

 

When Eames confronts Arthur to ask about how his date with Evanthe went, Arthur looks somewhere between ready to punch him for asking, and about ready to fall asleep in the corner just from hearing her name. “It wasn’t a date. Now go away, I’m working.”

He wants to poke at that irritation, maybe see if he can get Arthur to actually try to punch him (and probably succeed, but that’s not the point), but instead he sighs and sits on the corner of Arthur’s desk. “Evanthe sounded like she had a good time, and said you might be asking me for mail delivery services. I’m intrigued by your hopefully budding romantic relationship, but I also do care about her and want to know if I’ll have anything to add to next week’s bundle.”

Arthur lets out a breath. “We enjoyed each other’s company, and no, I won’t have a letter for you.”

“But maybe someday you will?” Eames asks.

“Maybe.”

“Good,” Eames says, clapping a friendly hand on Arthur’s shoulder for a moment before sliding off the desk. “I hope you can help each other.”

But the letter for Evanthe never comes.

 

Their fourth year ends, their friends take their OWLs, and the first few weeks of summer are spent submerged in legilimency and psychology, moving into both muggle and wizard books on the mind and personalities and what molds and defines a person. The regular correspondences go around, and they all have spelled boxes full of their studies and notes now thanks to the quantity they’ve come up with (which Cobb made, because Cobb is very fond of making things it turns out, and he is also very fond of irritating mazes that cover the lid of the box to confound people out of looking too closely at them and gives Eames a headache even when he’s supposed to see it).

A month into summer, Eames gets a letter that reads:

_Team:_

_We’ve found a pensieve (memory depository/thought viewer; see M 4.17p2) which costs two hundred galleons and is stolen and therefore not something to ask monetary assistance from parents for. I can contribute fifteen immediately; Dom can contribute ten. Please send contributions. If we get to fifty within the weekend, our seller will reserve it for us until we can give the full price._

_How exciting!!_

_Love,  
Mal_

Eames doesn’t even hesitate before sending a letter back pledging his life savings of twenty galleons, and spends the rest of the night reading about pensieves and trying to figure out the easiest way to steal however much money they’ll need.

It doesn’t take long, of course – they make it to 71 galleons within hours, probably technically seconds when you ignore travel time since they committed the money as soon as they got Mal’s letters. They calculate it out to a debt of about 26 galleons each, and they _want_ that pensieve. Eames hadn’t thought they’d be able to even dream of getting one until Cobb and Mal and Yusuf were seventh-years. God, the possibilities of what they could finally understand, finally _do_ with the help of a pensieve.

But they first need the money.

Honestly, it’s embarrassingly easy to steal when you’re a metamorphmagus. Half the time all he has to do is morph into someone’s kid and begs them for money and voila, up to two galleons. He gets better at marking rich families, and then learns how to better decide what tactic to use on the parents (polite request, blasé demand, beg, throw a tantrum, et cetera). It doesn’t even take him a week to make the required twenty-six galleons, so…he keeps going, and sends the fund fifty galleons instead.

Eames sends his money, and he keeps on making more. He moves from being bratty little children to trying simple, easy cons. Nobody catches him. Eames gets better and better, moves on from being children to being beautiful men and women with light fingers, and wonders what the hell he’s doing studying at Hogwarts when he could be filthy rich and rolling in gold just doing this.

At least, he wonders until he gets Mal’s letter telling them they had the pensieve and were refusing to even touch it until the entire team could get back together to experiment, and the footnote of _PS Good lord, what did you all do to get that much money so quickly?_

They all know there’s no chance in hell they’ll be able to meet up before school starts, particularly since Yusuf spends his summers in fucking Mombasa, so Eames just…keeps going. There will eventually be another situation like this, of course, so it’s better to have additional reserve funds. Plus it’s fun, and his mother hasn’t even noticed he’s gone yet.

He researches wherever his feet take him during the summer, cons whoever his eyes land on, morphs into whatever face suits his fancy. Eames is only _Eames_ for probably a third of the summer, and he revels in it.

At least, he does until he gets a letter from Arthur. Not research. It’s an outright letter, with another letter inside it, with the one addressed to Eames asking the second letter to be sent to Evanthe since his own attempts seem to be going wrong. There’s pleasantries, of course, but they’re Arthur’s beautiful type of pleasantry where he acknowledges the addressee’s existence in letters made of sharp curves and blunt lines before moving into the things he thinks actually matter. It’s more or less the word ‘Eames’ stuck at the top of the page and then content, and it’s so undeniably _Arthur_ that, finally, Eames doesn’t think about dropping out of school. 

Evanthe’s letter is surprisingly similar, even if to anyone else it would read like a standard letter. Eames knows that when the first line is _How are you?_ , Arthur genuinely wants to know.

Eames tries not to smile as he turns his hand into Evanthe’s and writes her reply.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Evanthe is girl!Eames. Yes, the blonde bombshell. She just...isn't a bombshell at the moment, looks more like [this](http://images2.fanpop.com/images/photos/8200000/Talulah-talulah-riley-8272906-395-594.jpg) \- abnormally pretty, but still approachable. Also she's, you know, fourteen.


	2. Chapter 2

When September 1st rolls around, it feels strange to get on the train and go to school after his criminal whirlwind of a summer. It feels strange to just be _Eames_ again, after what seems like years. But if Gringotts didn’t care what he contributed to the vault or where it came from, Eames doesn’t either. And if anyone notices his trunk is new or his shoes have an extra bit of pizzazz to them (green paisley inlaid on the patent black leather, thank you very much), they don’t comment.

At least, nobody comments until Arthur gets in the compartment. He looks sleeker somehow, and taller, but that’s always expected after summer. It is very unfair how attractive he is.

“Those shoes are terrible,” Arthur says, like they offend him personally.

“Terribly brilliant, you mean. You wish you had shoes like my lovelies,” Eames says, and makes a point of stretching his legs across the compartment and onto the seat next to Arthur. “Don’t be jealous of my affection for them, darling. You know you’re my one and only.”

Which was…far more blatantly flirtatious than he meant to be, but that’s what happens after spending so much time as an attractive adult intent on seducing people’s gold out of their pockets.

“I do wish I had your shoes,” Arthur says, completely ignoring the comment. “Then I could burn them.”

“Well, someone’s feeling particularly violent today,” Eames says.

“You’re wearing ultraviolet rave snakes on your feet,” Arthur says. “They’d make anyone feel violent.”

Yusuf, conveniently, appears at that very moment. He opens the door with an excited smile, brass and glass goggles already firmly planted on his forehead. “The pensieve is already planted in the fourth floor room,” he says, and all talk of shoes is kicked out the window in favor of hushed discussion about plans they’ve thought up for using it, and it only gets worse when Dom and Mal find their compartment.

The hushed discussion turns into debate when Yusuf says he wants to try and figure out the chemical composition of the pensieve and Mal tells him he’ll have a hard time defacing their pensieve after Mal chops off his arms. Then it gets pretty quiet. Followed by it getting _really_ loud.

Dom starts shouting about using the pensieve for _memories_ , as it was made. Mal says that no, it’s not memories, it’s _dreams_. Yusuf wants to know how the device works, Arthur wants to see how memory or dream extraction works, and Eames just wants to see if he can tinker with whatever they end up sticking in the damn thing.

It takes them a while to notice the girl standing in the door, staring at them.

“Gryffindor, and therefore Cobb’s problem,” Eames declares, because houses should take care of their own, and Dom doesn’t argue. He stands up and escorts the girl (Ariadne, year 3, with a distinctly Slytherin-like glint to her eyes when Dom starts pulling her away from the compartment).

When they do finally get to the pensieve, it’s already the second week of school and Eames knows he’s not the only one itching to get his hands on their baby. He hasn’t even seen the damn thing, but the moment Mal pulls it out of an enchanted cabinet in their drafty abandoned fourth floor room, he is in love. He’s fairly sure they’re all in love.

It’s a battered thing, a wide but shallow dish that, while perfectly intact on the inside, is scored and jagged brown-black stone on the outside. Wires have been wrapped and attached around the sides to keep it together, making a patchwork of shining stone with silver and copper accents. Of course, to anyone else it probably looks like a fruit bowl someone smashed and then tried to fit together with whatever they had around the house, but they know better. It’s _perfection_ is what it is.

“I just might cry,” Eames says, breaking the awed silence.

“Dom sobbed like a baby when we found it in Knockturn Alley,” Mal says.

“At least I didn’t try to make out with it,” Dom mutters.

Arthur, on the other hand, just grins at the pensieve like it’s the most beautiful thing in the world and it’s all his. Which is half true, at least. “What are we going to do with it first?”

“Test its functionality,” Yusuf says before anyone else can. Which is probably good, since he actually knows how to test out equipment before using it. He’s gotten fairly good at that, over the years. He only blows himself up three times a year nowadays. “We insert a simple memory, observe, and then remove it.”

It’s the textbook usage of a pensieve, so they all decide to use the same memory – meeting in detention.

It’s only after he’s put the memory in that Eames recalls he’d been more or less internally monologing _Oh hey look there’s Arthur it’s Arthur oh my god it’s Arthur oh my god Arthur is here it’s Arthur oh my god_ , so he nearly shouts out, “Isn’t there supposed to be selection capabilities when there’s multiple memories?”

“That’s a good point,” Dom says, frowning down at the little white jellyfish-like memories making their way around the imaginary waters of the pensieve. “Okay, everyone try to get my memory and shout out if you end up seeing a different one.”

They take turns. Eames is right before Arthur and he tries very hard to not panic that Arthur will accidentally end up in Eames’ memory – or even worse, ‘accidentally’ end up in Eames’ memory.

It’s only when he enters Dom’s memory that he realizes that it wasn’t that big of a concern, since it’s only what happened, not what he was thinking. It all focuses on Cobb and what he experienced – Yusuf is a distant blip on his radar until the boy speaks up, and Eames is vaguely ignored until he starts talking, too. Mal and Arthur are constantly crisp and clear in the memory, though. Eames feels vaguely insulted.

Purely out of curiosity, when the primary tests are done and everyone has their memories back safe and sound in their brains and Eames volunteers to stay behind and clean up, Eames pulls his own back out. Interestingly, nobody is blurry. Arthur just seems to glow.

 

When they’re a good month and a half into the year, Eames runs across Bertie Snorkins. Who is awake, just like every other time Eames has stalked the boy in the hopes of seeing a prime Arthur-stalking opportunity.

“I got permission to go to St. Mungo’s and get an anti-narcolepsy potion!” Bertie tells him, because Bertie is telling everyone, even the passing Slytherin who tosses out a simple _Oh look, you aren’t passed out on the floor_.

Eames stops in his tracks and stares at Bertie, who beams back at him.

“Isn’t it wonderful?” Bertie practically squeals – puberty has done nothing for the dignity of male voices in their year, to the point that Eames doesn’t even make fun of it any more – and Eames can’t help it. He pulls out his wand and hexes Bertie Snorkins’ skin into his mother’s least favorite wallpaper pattern.

It was a stupid decision, and a stupid way to go about expressing his anger and frustration, but there’s only so much a man can take. Plus, it was either this or he plots out something truly unfortunate for Bertie so Eames could replace him forever.

“I don’t know if I should thank you for putting such a simple hex on Snorkins, or punch you for putting a hex on him, period,” Arthur says before their next Illegal Legilimency Club meeting. He’s not glaring, but there’s definitely a scowl. A definite scowl that Eames is trying very hard to not find alluring.

Eames smiles at him, because he always wants to smile at him. “Still ready to resort to physical violence at the drop of a hat. How long have you been in magic school now, love?”

“Snorkins said it was unprovoked. You’ve never been the type to randomly hex students,” Arthur says, and dear god, is that actual concern? “What happened?”

“I’m a Slytherin, Arthur,” Eames says. “There are expectations for students in my house.”

Arthur isn’t fooled, though, because he has a big stupid lovely brain. “They’ve been expected for years one through four, too. Why start meeting them now?” He frowns, and hell must be freezing because that is _definitely_ concern in his eyes. “Something happened during summer break.”

“A lot happened,” Eames says, surprising himself with the venom in his words. “What is this, an intervention? One hex does not a habit make.”

It makes Arthur twitch. “I’m trying to offer my help, Eames,” he says, although it sounds like he’s grinding them out from an absurdly tense jaw. Arthur takes a deep breath, and Eames nearly jumps out of his skin when Arthur puts a hand on his shoulder. “Will you at least tell me why you’re so jumpy and defensive?”

“I’m not used to being me anymore,” Eames blurts out because _he can’t think Arthur is touching him oh god_ , and he has to step towards the door because no amount of physical intimacy with other people could ever desensitize him to Arthur’s every touch. If the other boy even takes _one breath_ differently, it makes Eames’ heart skip a beat, for fuck’s sake. “I’m sorry, Arthur, but I just.” He can’t think of a thing, so he says, “I just can’t.” And walks out the door.

Since Arthur is a Hufflepuff and therefore physically incapable of letting someone in their circle walk out on them while in an unpredictable state of emotions, Eames expects Arthur to come after him. So, he shifts into Char Hollyhock just in time for Arthur to run into him in the middle of the pursuit.

“Where’s Eames?” Arthur asks.

“What’s it to you?” Eames-as-Char retorts, because if there’s one thing that he can rely on in the world, it’s the fact that Char Hollyhock is an insufferable dick.

Except about five seconds later he remembers that this was a _really bad idea_. 

As Eames has learned, Hufflepuffs aren’t the cuddle puppy pile of smiles and rainbows that everyone thinks they are. They’re more like a very open and friendly mafia family that is happy to help you out. If you don’t mess with their people too much, they don’t mess with you and are more or less benevolent. If you are a serious barrier in the way of a Hufflepuff that is determined to take care of their people or do what must be done, you get fished out of the lake five days after you went missing. It takes a lot to make a Hufflepuff step over the line between nice guy and mafia hit man. Or it usually does, at least. Well, it takes a lot for people who aren’t Arthur.

Arthur’s skills have definitely improved since third year, because Eames-as-Char doesn’t even have time to hear what spells Arthur shoots his way. One minute he’s standing in a predictably Hollyhock way, and the next he’s honest to god chained to the wall with about a foot between his shoes and the floor, Arthur’s wand pointed right in his face and glowing a very intimidating orange color. “I repeat. Where’s Eames?”

“Holy shit,” Eames-as-Char says, gaping at him.

“Arthur, what the _hell_ are you doing?” Cobb’s voice booms out, and it jerks Arthur out of Murder Mode, thank god. “I think we have more important things to do than beat up Slytherins, don’t you?”

“I asked Eames about what happened with Snorkins. He freaked out and left, and Hollyhock won’t tell me where he went,” Arthur summarizes. Ever efficient, that boy. Eames wishes he didn’t think it was hot.

“Because I don’t _know_ ,” Eames-as-Char says, smiling way more than he should, but he can’t help it. Arthur is amazing, and must be informed of that fact. “He ran off, and then there you were with your _very_ impressive wand work.” Eames-as-Char pauses, and then makes a point of frowning and slowing his words back down to Hollyhock levels of loquaciousness. “What are all of you doing up here, anyway?”

And oh, that was a mistake, because where Dom goes, so goes Mal, and he really hopes Yusuf is around somewhere because this is going to get very, very messy the minute Mal’s _Stupefy!_ hits him.

 

The thing is, metamorphmagi revert to their ‘true’ form when they’re asleep, no matter what. It’s often a gradual transition, but it’s always a definite thing. If a metamorphmagus sleeps for more than four hours, they’ll wake up in standard format. No shifts stay in place, beyond simple self changes – hair, ears, toe size. If it’s a change to your original state, it will probably stay. Shifting into a completely different person? Not so much.

Eames wakes up in a dungeon. Which is good.

It’s not his dungeon. Which is bad.

But, he can see Yusuf nearby. Which is good. Probably. Eames sure hopes it’s good.

“Hello there,” Eames says, because it’s easiest. His voice is his own, and he’s in standard Eames form, so he doesn’t bother acting like anyone but himself. “Feel like filling me in?”

“You’re very stupid,” Yusuf says, not looking up from whatever he’s doing with the flasks.

“Already knew that, thanks,” Eames says. “Where am I, what happened, did anyone see me revert?”

“I didn’t even know it was you until twenty minutes or so after the spell hit,” Yusuf says, and sounds oddly embarrassed. “But your hair was getting darker. I think I’m the only one who noticed. So, I staged an ethical dilemma and stomped on down to my potions room with you in tow, since none of us can get you back into Slytherin.”

Eames grins at him. “You should be one of us, Yusuf. You’re wasted in Ravenclaw.”

“The hat thought so too, but since my only ambition is to be very, very happy with my potions, it decided Ravenclaw would suit me best,” Yusuf says, and pauses in his whatever-he’s-doing to turn and give Eames a scathing eyebrow raise. Oh, the pain. “Arthur is genuinely worried about you, Eames. He said you’re having an identity crisis.”

“Close enough,” Eames says, and sprawls out on the lab table Yusuf had levitated him onto, thoughtful. “I’m starting to think I should read up on metamorphmagi.”

That _definitely_ gets Yusuf’s attention. God, that’s two concerned people now. “Why?”

“I need to know if someone can morph _too_ much. Or maybe it’s a puberty thing. Or it could be standard teen existential crisis, I’m not sure,” Eames says. When Yusuf gives him a _keep talking_ gesture and even goes so far as to sit on his lab stool, Eames sighs. “I get this itch under my skin, now, if I don’t shift very often. And when I’m just Eames-as-Eames, I still feel like I’m just in another shift.”

Yusuf nods, and pulls out a quill and parchment. “How often were you shifting before?”

“This summer?” When Yusuf nods, Eames says, “Probably two or three times a day.”

Yusuf doesn’t bother writing anything. He just stares at him. “A full body shift. Two or three times a day.” Eames nods, and Yusuf sighs. “Fine, then. Would you say you spent more time shifted than as yourself?”

“Definitely,” Eames says.

Yusuf scribbles something down on the parchment, and says, “My _educated_ guess is that it’s a bit like straining a muscle. You overworked your morphing during the summer, and now it’s sore even when you aren’t using it. Give it time. Don’t shift for a month or so.”

The look on Eames’ face must express the horror he feels, because Yusuf actually stands up and walks over just to pat him on the back. Clearly, it’s a day for the manly patting of Eames. “I don’t know what it’s like for you, to have an ability like that in your blood, but this is something you need to do. Take the time to read up on metamorphmagi and research.”

“Sixteen years old and you’re smarter than sixty year old doctors,” Eames says, and looks horrified again. “Oh god, are we best friends now?”

“We might be,” Yusuf admits, and moves back to his workstation. “Guess that means I’ll have to help you think up _normal_ ways to stalk Arthur.”

 

Eames is halfway through _The Moste Rare and Ackurate Fackts of Organick Magicks_ , which he’s pretty sure is mostly made up or just there to mock the reader with the letter K randomly thrown into words, when Arthur finally hunts him down. He assumes Arthur’s been giving him space, considering it’s been nearly a week and Arthur could find a needle in a haystack in about five seconds, mostly by demanding the hay tell him where the needle is.

“Good morning, darling,” Eames says with as sunny a smile as he can manage, marking his place and closing the book to show Arthur the back cover instead of the title. “What brings you to my side on such a dreary day?”

“Are you okay?” Arthur asks.

According to the many books he’s pulled out, the answer is a resounding _hell no_ , but instead he sighs. “Why do you have so little faith in me and my ability to take care of myself?”

Arthur hesitates for a moment, but says, “Because that’s my job.”

Eames blinks at him, surprised. “We have jobs now?”

“I’m the babysitter, Yusuf’s the mad scientist, you’re the piggybank, and Mal and Dom are the artistic spirits,” Arthur says.

It is not lost on Eames that Arthur designated him as the heartless inanimate object to be destroyed when they decide they need something. “At least I only have to hold things,” he says. “I’d say you’re more of a cat herder, or even a bodyguard, but to each their own.”

“Bodyguard?” Arthur asks.

“Oh, Mr. Hollyhock was _very_ eager to tell me all about the encounter he had with you. And how it was clearly my fault that you decided to chain him to a wall and knock him out,” Eames says. Arthur doesn’t look the least bit repentant. “The reaction was a little bit over the line of friendly concern. I know Char’s a horrible person to be around, but. Well. People will talk.”

“I stopped caring what people were saying a long time ago, Eames,” Arthur says. “As long as it gets me where I need to go, they can say whatever they want.”

“You and your wrecking ball ways are so very alluring,” Eames says.

Arthur is almost smiling. It takes a good bit of effort to ignore the butterfly effect with that expression. “You know, not everything that changed about you over the summer was bad,” he says.

“None of it is bad,” Eames says.

“Oh, some of it’s _very_ bad,” Arthur says dryly. “Flirting with everything under the sun is definitely bad.”

“I don’t flirt with everything under the sun,” Eames says, and feels vaguely offended. He might flirt with attractive people, but not _everyone_ , and he doesn’t put that much effort into it. But since he does pretty much nothing _but_ flirt with Arthur, or flirt when others are around and he’s with Arthur in the futile hope he’ll get jealous, he can see why Arthur might come to believe that. When Arthur just gives him a Look, Eames lets out a huff of air. “I think you’re getting charming and flirting messed up again, Arthur. I can’t help being naturally charming.”

“If that’s charming, I’m afraid to see what your flirting would be,” Arthur says.

Eames knows it’s a joke. He knows what he should say, and knows he’s done enough deflecting that he could just tell Arthur to leave and he’d leave willingly. But at the same time, he’s sitting next to a book that is telling him _thee overusage of metamorph magicks kan kause the magus to lose sight of self, lose track of thee natural body – causing endless shifte in sleepe – and in thee advanced stajes of shifte overusage, thee magus kan even lose track of thee minde, kreating a magus ever in flux, unstable to the ekstreame_. He read another book yesterday telling him there could be severe tissue damage to every single part of him, including his brain, if he keeps turning into other people. And Arthur is just _right there_ , and Eames might be dying, or worse, at age fifteen.

So he looks right at Arthur, lets his endless stupid desperation and longing show in his eyes, and says, “Sometimes you sit in that windowsill in our club room while the sun’s going down and you’ve got your tie just the slightest bit loosened, and I swear to god you glow. It’s the most beautiful thing I have ever seen, and I would give anything for the chance to drag my hand down that tie of yours and curl my fingers around the tip of it and slowly reel you down to my lips and kiss you breathless until the stars came out.”

The minute the words are out, he gives Arthur a quirk of the lips and turns back to his books. The less incriminating ones, mind – there’s still plenty of legilimency-related research to be done, and while it’s incriminating to anyone else, it’s the only logical thing for Arthur to see him reading in the library.

When the silence just keeps on eating him alive, Eames gives Arthur an out and mutters, “Flirting with everyone under the sun, he says.”

Arthur takes it, of course, even if he doesn’t do much with it. Arthur just lets out a noise somewhere between a guffaw and a sigh, and walks out of the library.

The minute Arthur is out of sight, he opens the big book again, because it’s an excellent second option for things to bash his head against.

 

Illegal Legilimency Club is coming along swimmingly thanks to the pensieve. Eames has a 1 in 10 chance of reading someone in the group’s mind, and a 1 in 50 chance of reading Arthur’s (and then getting shut down two seconds after getting in). Dom is best at getting information out and into the pensieve, Mal is best at pulling _dreams_ out, which seems strange, but he’s not one to judge. Particularly after she’d pulled one out of him and just given him a knowing, surprisingly naughty look after giving it back. Yusuf, unsurprisingly, is more interested in testing the physical properties of the little squid-like memories and trying to bottle them than anything else.

To be honest, Eames is getting a little bit scared. Not of what they’re learning, of course. That part’s amazing. He’s scared of the skill set they’ve got going. Particularly his own, because it’s just _weird_ to be able to change the people in a memory or dream. He can tamper with what’s supposed to be the absolute truth.

Since Metamorphmagus Studies (which is just an Eames and Yusuf club) comes right after Illegal Legilimency Club, Yusuf’s the one who literally smacks him upside the head when he hands over the research he’s done and gets _“Then stop changing things, Eames!”_ shouted into his face.

Not shifting is almost more exhausting than actually doing it. When Arthur tries to continue his correspondence with Evanthe (which is rare, very rare, and seems mostly to be about commiserating over crushes and Eames), Eames can’t reply because his hand and tendons and instincts keep writing like Eames-as-Eames.

But on the plus side, he’s stopped always thinking of himself as Eames-as-Eames. Just being Eames is working out fine, even if he feels like he’s missing an arm.

Oh, and they have OWLS this year, of course. But Eames doesn’t really see the point in already worrying about a test when he’s potentially turning into a big crazy morphing ball of flesh and magic. It’s a stupid idea, but he knows that the books are only going to get him so far, so he sends his mother a quick letter just asking if she knew any other metamorphmagi he could talk to about things. Mostly he just wants to know he’s not crazy. And it’d also be helpful to know he’s not going to turn into a big crazy morphing ball of flesh and magic.

When he gets a reply, it’s much later than he’d expected, and much more terse than he’d expected, too.

It reads: _No._

“What a charmer, that mother of mine,” Eames says to his pancakes, and resigns himself to relying on _hope_ , as stupid an idea as it is.

 

He doesn’t even realize the Yule Ball is coming around until Dom and Mal start trying to make pre-party plans with the rest of the group. Eames is barely out of the pensieve (in a very boring, not changing anything way) when Mal pounces with a more than a little insane sparkle to her eyes, asking, “Who are you taking to the dance?”

“If only it could be you,” Eames says, and barely has time to pull his memory back out of the pensieve before she’s got her hands on his shoulders and is staring him down. “I’m sorry, what’s going on?”

“The Yule Ball, Eames,” Yusuf says from his corner of science. The potions master practically has his own secondary laboratory up here.

“You’re kind of scatterbrained these days,” Dom says. He’s staring intently into Arthur’s eyes. Eames would be jealous if he didn’t know they were trying to read each other’s minds.

Eames tosses him a smile. “Well, it’s to be expected, isn’t it? With OWLs and all.”

“In six months,” Arthur says, bland.

“OWLs and maybe also Christmas presents,” Eames admits, which has everyone’s interest peaked. He’s not planning anything fancy. Well, expensive yes, but not terribly complicated. To a point. It’s not his fault if transfiguration and charms take little to no effort for him, is it? “You have to wait ‘til break for them, you greedy goblins. No sooner.” Not unless he dies or turns into a crazy morphing bag of flesh, at least.

Mal, of course, is not distracted. Not for long, at least. “That’s all the more reason to badger you about your date, then.”

“I don’t have a date, what with only realizing I need one about two minutes ago,” Eames says, and then oh so casually glances towards Arthur, who has stopped being a stupidly good occlumens at Dom in favor of watching Eames.

Ever since the library, Arthur hasn’t been _avoiding_ him, per se, but has certainly been less ready to engage in some friendly antagonism. He’s not cold, but he’s most assuredly more guarded than before Eames let his foolish mouth and even more foolish heart run off. He still smiles sometimes, but it’s been a long, long time since he sat in that windowsill.

So, Eames turns to Yusuf and says, “Feel like going to the ball with me?”

“You’d be a horrible date. I want to go with Arthur,” Yusuf says.

“I already have a date,” Arthur says, and dear god, there is a _blush_ on his cheeks.

“ _Who?_ ” Eames bites out venomously before he can help it, and oddly enough, Yusuf chooses that moment to add something to something else and cause a minor explosion that needs immediate evacuation of the room. Mal casts a ventilation charm on the room and Dom stores their beloved pensieve away, and they all hurry out, closing and spelling the door locked before the smoke can escape.

“Looks like I’ll need to do some experimenting before we go back in,” Yusuf says, and grips Eames’ shoulder tight enough that he has to fight off a squeaking noise. “Accompany me down, and we can coordinate dress robes.”

Eames doesn’t even get a chance to object. Yusuf just drags him down to the dungeons and into his private potions area. The minute the door is locked and the usual silencing charm is cast, Yusuf’s pointing his wand straight at Eames. By now, Eames can recognize the blue _stupefy_ glowing on the tip of his wand.

“Don’t even _think_ of shifting,” Yusuf says. “I don’t care how jealous you get. You know how dangerous that is right now.”

“If you strain a muscle, you need to stretch it to really recover,” Eames says.

Yusuf looks ready to smack him, but instead he takes a deep breath and grabs a folio of scribbled-on parchment. Eames knows what it is, because he can recognize his own handwriting. “That’s not what every single book you’ve read about the subject has said, is it.”

He wants to scream out that he doesn’t _care_ , but he calms himself down. Eames has learned enough about psychology and adolescence and the mind in general to know that this is the equivalent of a teenaged temper tantrum. He’s getting a lot of those this year, it seems – first at Bertie Snorkins for nothing but healing his narcolepsy, and now at whomever Arthur’s chosen to go on a date with solely because they’re going on a date with Arthur.

“This is your future we’re talking about,” Yusuf says. “This is your _life_. Just give it a few more months to get back to baseline metamorphmagus status, and then you can start shifting again. Arthur’s not going anywhere.”

“He’s going to the Yule Ball,” Eames says, because he might know what’s going on with his brain, but that doesn’t mean he can’t be petulant.

“And so are you,” Yusuf says. “Have you thought about just being _yourself_ when it comes to Arthur?”

Of course he has, but he’s also too practical to try that. If Eames himself is shot down, it all ends. If Eames-as-someone else gets shot down, there’s always another chance. “When do you think it’ll be safe to start morphing again?” he asks instead.

Yusuf knows he’s dodging the topic, but lets him. “If I had my way, I’d say wait until you’re 21, but I don’t think you could manage that even if you wanted to. Really, I think we need to talk to an expert.”

“I am more than a little hesitant to go out and tell the world about my tricks,” Eames says, because it’s true, and also because his mother sent him a one-word letter that’s about as definitive an answer as he could ever get about telling others he’s a metamorphmagus.

“Then let’s talk to a different kind of expert,” Yusuf says, and Eames is fairly sure the grin on Yusuf’s face should be scary. It probably would be, to anyone who isn’t a Slytherin. To Eames’ kind, that’s the grin of having a good time.


	3. Chapter 3

Eames gets a date fairly easily. Her name’s Annabelle Castletop and she’s a sixth year Gryffindor and they get along surprisingly well. She’s funny, he laughs at her jokes, and she doesn’t seem interested in anything beyond having a friend who serves well as arm candy. Eames has his suspicions about this, particularly when he notices that Annabelle sits _very_ close to another sixth year Gryffindor during meals, even if the other party seems more interested in eating than anything else. If anything, it makes them even more of kindred spirits.

Yusuf has declared he’s not going and is instead going to use the time for his more volatile experiments while everyone’s looking the other way. Arthur isn’t acting any differently, which is strange, and Mal and Dom are even sappier than usual.

It’s all very calm and Just Fine until Mal comes storming in to the club room ( _without_ Dom, which is shocking) and points at him and shouts, “Annabelle Castletop!”

Eames doesn’t bother asking what the hell Mal is doing pointing at him, or why she’s even there when Eames himself is half an hour early for Illegal Legilimency Club. He just nods and asks, “What about her?”

“She’s practically married to Joshua, even if they’re broken up for the moment. He’s going to kill you when he finds out, Eames,” Mal says.

“And you realize that’s the _point_ , yes?” Eames asks, and Mal just glares at him. “I enjoy Annabelle’s company. If she wants to make someone jealous, fine. It’s her life.”

“No, Eames, you don’t understand,” Mal says, and sits down in front of him on the floor. “You have a _reputation_ , love, and you’re putting yourself in danger. It doesn’t matter what is really going on. Jealousy makes it hard to see beyond what your eyes show.”

“I have more pressing problems than jealous boyfriends,” Eames says.

Mal is an intelligent woman. More than that, she’s an intelligent, compassionate woman with a level of insight and determination that is occasionally frightening. She takes Eames’ hands in her own and says, “We’ve noticed.”

Eames isn’t sure what she’s referring to with that, but no matter what specific problem she thinks she knows about, it’s true. The world is a different place when you’re looking through the eyes of someone who might be dying (or worse) and is also having his heart slowly ripped out of his chest while it happens.

“We just want to help you, Eames,” Mal says. “You’ve been…erratic. And this is just one bad decision on top of the others you’ve made. If there is anything we can do for you-”

“There’s nothing to be done, love,” Eames says, and sighs, picking up his folio of research notes. It’s become overstuffed even with the shrinking charm cast on them. “Although if you managed to find an anonymous hotline at St Mungo’s, I know a certain potions genius who would be most appreciative.”

“That, I think I can work on,” Mal says, and Dom comes trailing in. The look of relief on his face when he spots Mal makes Eames wonder if they really are literally inseparable.

They spend the night watching Yusuf show off his newly-learned ability to transfigure things into very much obliviate-able mice. Dom is thrilled to set up a maze to set them through to see if they can learn to have pinpoint accuracy with obliviating them, Mal is trying out legilimency on the mice, and Arthur and Eames are busy dealing with the very bizarre world of mouse memories in the pensieve. They see the world in an endless state of paranoid anxiety in the memories. Arthur thinks it’s just normal mouse perception, but Eames thinks that might just be because the mouse they’re looking through used to be a nice reasonable coffee mug.

 

Somehow, performing at the Hogwarts Yule Ball is a big deal for bands, so it seems the entertainment will be top notch. Eames has never heard of them, but he appreciates Mal’s excitement. Gushing over musicians makes her less likely to try and talk about feelings with him, and makes Dom much more likely to sit around developing an inferiority complex, which Arthur then takes the time to try and smack out of him. It’s a wonderful situation, having everyone comparatively distracted and not asking Eames questions.

Yusuf isn’t distracted, though, which is frustrating but expected. The usual potions distractions can still be relied upon enough that Yusuf isn’t constantly pestering him about shifting, and it seems even more intense these days. Eames isn’t quite sure what he’s planning for the night of the Yule Ball, but it’s something big (and, assumedly, dangerous) enough that Eames has decided ignorance will probably be his best defense if anyone comes asking.

Whatever he’s planning, it doesn’t stop Yusuf from demanding he stop by his personal potions dungeon before he goes to the dance. When he gets there, the first thing he notices is the big, empty, still-steaming brass tube smack dab in the center of the room which is a brand new addition to the equipment since, oh, five hours ago?

Yes, ignorance is most certainly the way to go for tonight.

“Oh, good,” Yusuf says, and beckons Eames over to the one table that he mysteriously half-melted and never bothered to fix. Apparently, he likes the warped surface. Yusuf is a strange individual, but since he’s handing Eames a small wooden box that still smells like some mossy ingredient, Eames settles for an inquisitive glance instead of pointing Yusuf’s oddities out. “It’s for tonight. They’re cufflinks. Happy Christmas, in a couple weeks.”

And so they are, Eames sees when he opens the top. There’s no presentation involved – Yusuf obviously put them in the box to make sure they stayed together and didn’t get anything questionable spilled on them. It’s just two little pieces of a strange silver-looking metal.

“They’re made of quicksilver, mostly solidified thanks to my genius,” Yusuf says, looking terribly pleased with himself. “With some powdered pearl in them as well so they’ll hold a charm much more reliably. It’s a charm for your protection. I had one of the seventh years do the spell so don’t worry, they won’t blow your wrists up.”

Quicksilver has come up over and over in their research into metamorphmagi, even if _why_ it’s affiliated (beyond obvious changeability) remains a mystery. “You didn’t have to do this,” Eames says, removing his own standard golden cufflinks and swapping them out. The quicksilver feels almost sticky, in a strangely solid way, like it wants to cling to his skin and cocoon him in metal. It’s a very, _very_ strange substance, and he’s immediately smitten with it.

“Of course I didn’t have to,” Yusuf says. “That’s what makes it a gift. Now go make a fool of yourself.”

He goes, but he doesn’t _quite_ make a fool of himself. It helps that he’s the only Slytherin waiting outside the entrance to Gryffindor Tower, which means he gets to spend the wait making the other houses feel horribly uncomfortable and that’s always fun. All Eames has to do is stand there and look smug and the others are left twitching and wondering what he has planned for them. Honestly, Eames is fairly certain it’s going to be the highlight of his night. 

Dom steps out in a flustered half-trip of maroon and black robes, and Eames has to restrain himself from catching him. He recovers, though. Barely. “Alright there, Cobb?” Eames asks – genuinely, even if it sounds like he’s mocking his friend. 

Dom looks towards him and spots his outfit. Eames just grins as Dom gives him one despairing shake of the head before trotting his way towards Ravenclaw and Mal.

Annabelle, at least, looks like she appreciates his good taste when she comes out. She looks _delighted_ , letting out a single laugh before closing the distance between them and hooking her elbow through Eames’ already-waiting arm. “I knew you’d be a fun date,” Annabelle says.

“Always glad to please,” Eames says. “I admit, your outfit is almost as attractive as mine. You’ll outshine me at this rate.”

“We’ll have to charm your robes to sparkle, then,” Annabelle says, leaning in to whisper conspiratorially. “Joshua’s right behind us, by the way.”

“Then now would be an excellent time to laugh, wouldn’t it?” Eames whisers back, and the entire affair is so ridiculous that it’s no effort at all to throw their heads back and pleasantly trot the rest of the way to the great hall. It’s more fun that Eames had dared to hope for – they’re both fully informed on the situation, of course. Annabelle knows Eames likes someone else and they already had a date, and Eames knows Annabelle is doing this solely to convince her boyfriend to get his act together. He’s always enjoyed a mutually beneficial relationship – Annabelle gets to make her boyfriend stop taking her for granted, and Eames gets to relentlessly spy on Arthur and his _date_. All he had ever dared hope for the evening. The laughter and shared humor is just icing on the cake.

Music is already blasting down the hallways, a song to which Annabelle declares her undying devotion and sweeps Eames onto the dance floor before he even has time to scope the room out. He can usually spot Arthur in any crowd, but it’s admittedly difficult to look for someone when you’re busy trying to waltz (and know how) while surrounded by other teenagers trying to waltz (who don’t know how), particularly to music Eames wouldn’t suggest _anyone_ waltz to. Still, Annabelle seems thrilled by it all, so who is Eames to rain on her parade?

He doesn’t quite understand why she’s so desperately hoping for Joshua to demand her back in a jealous fit, considering Eames has never seen her smile even once with him, but hearts are fickle things, he supposes. She deserves to be happy, even if it means dating someone you shout at over toast every single morning. Maybe some people just have a lot of feelings about toast.

It only takes four twirls around the dance floor for him to pinpoint Arthur in the mass of people, even if Arthur seems to have not noticed Eames yet (which is patently absurd). He settles in for dancing and mingling and only half-spying until Joshua chooses to come claim his ex-girlfriend in some swoon-worthy manner.

They get juice, and they step outside of the great hall, and the minute they’re out of general traffic Eames has a face full of Joshua Harkins. Or, to be more precise, a face full of Joshua Harkins’ wand. Annabelle is off chatting with some friends while Eames headed towards the table where well-mannered people put empty glasses, so it makes sense that he’d choose now to strike.

“Well hello there,” Eames says, smiling pleasantly. “Enjoying the festivities?”

“What the _hell_ are you doing with Annabelle?” Joshua snarls. Or tries to snarl. Really, what does she see in him?

“I’m enjoying her company and, hopefully, being good company in return,” Eames says. Joshua is clearly very worked up about this, since the tip of his wand is glowing slightly. No spell has been cast though, and Eames is fairly certain he’s faster, even with Joshua already drawn. Being a member of Illegal Legilimency Club results in a surprisingly well-rounded individual. “Really, have you even spoken to Annabelle tonight?”

“You stay away from her, Eames!” Joshua shouts.

And then Joshua smashes into the wall with a tiny squeak.

“Good evening, Arthur,” Eames says dryly, because he doesn’t even have to look to know who has wand work (and violent tendencies) like that. He loves the boy, but _really_?

“Oh god that _is_ you isn’t it,” Arthur says, sounding absolutely horrified.

Eames just has to turn and look at the painful grimace on Arthur’s lovely face. His outfit is a fairly standard set of dress robes that are _very_ well-fitted. Eames is well aware his own expression is usually referred to as ‘shit-eating grin’, but he prefers to call it a ‘triumphant needling smile’. It adds a little bit of class. “Would you like to know how much these robes cost?”

Arthur’s horror is kicked up yet another level, to the point he is incapable of making anything but squeaking noises and pointing (with the thankfully wandless hand; the other is still held at the ready because Arthur is Arthur) at Eames’s charming ensemble.

_“Paisley. Green,”_ Arthur manages to eke out of his unwilling vocal chords. “ _Floor length_ green paisley.”

Eames twirls for him. “It’s very me, isn’t it?” 

“ _Stop that right now Eames_ ,” Arthur shouts out, and his free hand shoots upwards to cover his eyes. “God, I’ll have nightmares.”

“As long as I’m in your dreams,” Eames says offhandedly, and then remembers the _other_ task at hand. “Would you mind telling me what you did to Joshua? If it’s permanent my date will never forgive us.”

“Adhesive charm to the wall,” Arthur says, still obviously trying to get over _The Outfit_. “It’ll wear off in about an hour, or he can escape by stripping.”

He has to stare at Arthur for a moment because sometimes he is so astoundingly brilliantly _devious_ that Eames wants to do horribly inappropriate things. “No matter what anyone else may tell you, Arthur, I love you for your mind,” Eames says. Inadvisable words, but Arthur really needs to know that.

“I have no idea what keeps me from burning all your clothing.”

“Neither do I,” Eames replies honestly.

Naturally, that’s when Annabelle comes rushing over. Arthur at least has the decency to put his wand away when she starts fretting about Joshua’s predicament. “What happened?” she gasps out, cradling Joshua’s head in her hands.

“He was threatening Eames,” Arthur states, like that’s all the explanation anyone would ever need. 

Eames takes a moment to scowl at him before _actually_ explaining. “He was trying to scare me off from our date. Which overall proves he’s a horrible person, but he loves you.”

“I never wanted anything else,” Annabelle gushes, and Eames wonders if this is what happens to most people when they fall in love.

“Well, thanks to dear Arthur here, he’s stuck on the wall for about an hour. Sounds like an excellent opportunity to talk and resolve your issues,” Eames says.

At that, Annabelle actually looks away from Joshua and smiles at him. “Thank you so much for all your help, Eames.” She hesitates, looking a little less certain, but adds, “And Arthur.”

“What are friends for?” Eames says, smiling, and Annabelle nods one more time before obviously dismissing them and concentrating on Joshua. It’s as good an indicator as any for them to head back into the great hall.

Eames stops walking when he notices Arthur is giving him a strange look. A strange, not clothing-related look. When Eames frowns questioningly, Arthur shrugs. “You surprise me sometimes,” is all he says.

“In a good way or a bad way?” Eames asks.

“In a surprising way,” Arthur provides. He’s getting far too good at non-answer answers for Eames’ tastes. Arthur huffs his humoring-you huff, and elaborates. “Sometimes I wonder why you’re a Slytherin.”

Eames has wondered that too, but then he remembers that he’s lying to just about everyone he knows and spent the summer stealing money and faces from people just so that he could buy a stolen pensieve and doesn’t feel the least bit bad about it, other than how it might be killing him. He also remembers that his date with Annabelle was more of a mutually beneficial arrangement more than a friend helping another friend out. So, instead, he says, “I wonder why you’re a Hufflepuff, too.”

“One hell of an odd pair,” Arthur says.

Eames doesn’t dare hope that is an insinuation – mostly because Arthur has never been a particularly subtle person – so he just smiles and says, “But a good one.”

It takes a moment, but Eames waits. Sometimes Arthur has to think through things before he says them, and Eames is fine with that. He knows it’ll be something important at the end.

“I have a date,” Arthur says, sounding oddly numb. Almost uncomfortable, which sits strangely in Eames’ mind.

Eames is kind of wondering why it took Arthur so long to say that. He can’t help it. His lips quirk into something like a smile. “And shouldn’t you be doting on her instead of being my knight in shining armor?”

“I chose poorly,” Arthur says. Eames would call it a _grumble_ if it wasn’t coming from ever-poised Arthur.

Eames isn’t quite sure what to do about this, but he settles for crossing his arms and asking, “Do you want help getting rid of her, or do you want dating tips?”

“Will you let me _talk_?” Arthur snaps out, and Eames nearly takes a step back at how sharp it is. Contrary to popular belief, Arthur is rarely one to lose his temper. If ever. It happens in a very Hufflepuff way, meaning this has to be about something he deeply cares about.

Eames is starting to get worried. He stays silent though, simply nods and waits.

Arthur sighs, shaking his head and shutting his eyes. “Jesus, take that thing off, I can’t even look at you without cringing.”

Eames rolls his eyes, but complies. It’s only an over robe anyway, and the only offensive thing left on him is the matching tie. That, Arthur can just deal with. “Your delicate sensitivities have been accommodated,” Eames says dryly, dragging the words out as arrogantly as possible.

Arthur doesn’t thank him. Eames didn’t expect him to. He just opens his eyes, looks straight at Eames, and says, “I asked Bertie Snorkins and now I hate him.”

Eames feels like someone just snapped a rubber band directly against his heart. “I’m sorry, can you repeat that please,” he says, because his mouth is very good at making vaguely appropriate word-like noises when he can’t think.

It doesn’t seem to please Arthur, since his face shuts down fast enough to rival his wandwork. “Is this going to be a problem?”

“ _Bertie Snorkins_?” Eames says instead, barely keeping his voice below a shout. Arthur is slightly less tense, but Eames is still stuck on the fact that he asked Bertie Snorkins, everything else rattling around while Eames tries to understand what Arthur could _ever_ see in that moron. “Darling, please tell me that’s not the best you think you can do. He’s a complete mess!”

“Which is why I hate him now,” Arthur admits, looking relieved yet endlessly irritated. “I liked him before he fixed his narcolepsy. Sometimes.” Eames doesn’t even know what his expression is – he doesn’t even know _what he’s feeling_ \- but Arthur bristles and says, “I don’t like many people, okay?”

“Bertie Snorkins,” Eames repeats.

And he’s a clever guy, so when what Arthur’s saying finally processes itself through his brain, he reaches some conclusions. Arthur _sometimes_ liked Bertie when he was narcoleptic. Arthur does not like healed-Bertie. Therefore he does not like Bertie, and liked Bertie when he was _not_ Bertie. Which means he liked Eames-as-Bertie. Which means he (probably) likes Eames-as-Eames.

“Oh god, it’s me,” Eames breathes out.

“What’s you?” Arthur asks, and he looks…unsettled. A little concerned, too.

Timing rules the world, and it seems to be astoundingly on top of things tonight because someone behind him says, “Excuse me, are you Eames?” The voice sounds adultish and oddly familiar, but all Eames can do is nod, still outright gaping at Arthur. “Ah, good. I’m here from Yusuf. If you’d join me for a moment?”

“Can it wait?” Eames asks. Or means to ask, before the man grabs his collar and starts dragging him away. He expects Arthur to start whapping spells at his abductor because that’s what he _does_ , but instead he’s staring at Eames’ abductor. So, Eames turns around to see that he’s being dragged away by himself. Or someone with his own face, although it’s been changed slightly, in an adultish grown-up kind of way. Arthur may be baffled by this, but Eames isn’t. “You’re like me, aren’t you.”

“No I’m not, because _you_ were about to do something _very_ stupid and I am not as stupid as you are,” the other metamorphmagus says, and shifts his grip from Eames’ neck to his arm. “First, I need you to drop the robe.”

Eames considers asking why he needs to do that, but his own face looks terribly stern and not ready for disobedience, so Eames doesn’t even pause before letting it drop to the floor. The other metamorphmagus nods, like Eames has passed some test, and guides him through the castle to some area on the second floor that Eames has never seen in his life. This seems to be a night for firsts, clearly. The metamorphmagus opens a nondescript door and pushes Eames through it before following on his own, locking it behind him.

The fact it locks from the inside and not the outside like every other room in the castle, aside from the password-and-painting-protected dormitories, is not lost on Eames.

Eames would really like to leave and go back to talking to Arthur, but instead he sits down in one of the two chairs in the room, which happen to be the only two items of furniture in the entire sizeable room. It looks almost like an abandoned classroom, aside from the lack of windows.

The metamorphmagus does _not_ sit down, instead choosing to stand in front of Eames and stare at him. It’s very strange, to be stared at by an adult version of yourself. “Is there any chance you’d be willing to shift to something less bizarre?” Eames can’t help but ask.

“No,” the other metamorphmagus says. “There’s no better disguise to make sure you’ll never find me again.” He pauses, and says, “You may call me Alphard Hurst.” It’s obviously not his real name, but Eames didn’t expect one. “Metamorphmagi are not the most open and trusting bunch, even with our own kind. Organic magic is dangerous to let others know about.”

“Everyone knew Nymphadora Tonks was a metamorphmagus,” Eames points out.

“She was also closely related to the prestigious Black family, with a well-published family scandal dealing with her parents’ marriage, not to mention her birth. If she went missing, people would have taken notice,” Alphard – he might as well use the fake name – says. “Besides, she was under the Ministry’s thumb anyway once she became an auror.” He smirks. “I don’t think that’s what you want to be when you grow up, is it.”

“Then why are you here?” Eames asks. “To tell me to not be an auror?”

“To make you get control of yourself and not turn into a shapeless ball of flesh,” Alphard answers, and frowns at him. “Most metamorphmagi don’t have this sort of problem until their twenties, at the earliest.”

Eames smiles. “I’ve been busy.”

“You’ve been foolish, and ambitious,” Alphard says, and sits in the remaining chair. “Puberty is difficult enough for normal people. Most of us couldn’t even shift while we were going through it. _You_ seem to have taken the other path, which means all those lessons we usually get from whatever metamorphmagi we hunt down – or hunts us down – have to come to you early.” Alphard gives him a very firm look. “You should be _very_ appreciative of your friend Yusuf. He went through a lot of trouble to get me here.”

“Of course I’m appreciative,” Eames says, and glances around at the conspicuous absence of clocks. There’s absolutely no way to know the time. “How long will this take?”

“That’s up to you,” Alphard says. “I’ve had you cleared from school until the start of next semester, based on medical emergency.”

Eames gapes at him. “That’s a _month_.”

“Let’s hope you don’t need longer than that,” Alphard says, and stands, holding his hand out towards Eames. “Your wand, please.” Eames hands it over, and wonders if Alphard is actually an Ollivander, considering the expert-like method of appraisal. It’s acacia with phoenix core, ten inches and flexible enough to make most people cringe. _Quite the malleable wand. A trickster’s wand, able to bend instead of break_ , Ollivander had said.

Alphard says, “A liar’s wand through and through, isn’t it?” Before Eames can try and defend himself, Alphard pulls his own out – a strange pale wood color – and casually flicks it against his palm. It’s just as flexible as Eames’ own, which Alphard hands back. “It’s one of the few indicators of a metamorphmagus. A _hidden_ one, at least. Don’t go around bending it in front of the Ministry.”

Eames frowns at the man. Absently, he realizes that Alphard might actually consider himself a woman and have taken a male form – Eames’ form – specifically for this. “What are you here to teach me? _Really_ teach me, not that morphing ball of flesh hogwash.”

“I’m here to teach you how to survive,” Alphard says. “And I only have a month to do it, so forget everything else. This is your life now. Everything else can wait a few weeks.”

He just nods and tries to settle back into the chair more comfortably, because it’s obvious he doesn’t have any choice.

 

Eames learns quite a bit from Alphard Hurst, to be honest. But the first and most important thing he learns is the concept and importance of something Alphard calls a ‘totem’.

“Sometimes we forget our real bodies,” Alphard says, and for the first time in the past week of close quarters (they sleep on cots, they eat magically-appearing food, they use the same attached bathroom when necessary) Alphard takes off his robe. He still has black gloves and Eames’ face on, but he loses the shirt with a business-like quality.

He is absolutely _covered_ in tattoos.

“Many of us use childhood scars, sometimes piercings or even the feel of a specific object on their skin. Me, I prefer tattoos. It’s easy enough to remove them,” he says, and Eames watches the tattoos disappear back into his skin. “They’re just as easy to return. It gives your skin something to remember, and it’s an easy enough solution.” Alphard raises a cautious hand before Eames can ask, though. “But you should keep them to yourself. If you’re shifted and someone happens to know your design and has some ink around, things can get very dangerous.”

“But how likely is that?” Eames says, which leads to Eames’ second very important lesson.

Alphard crosses his arms over his chest, obviously trying very hard to not glare at him. “Maybe I haven’t succeeded in explaining how dangerous being discovered is. Very well. What have you learned about organic magic?”

“It’s something a witch or wizard is born with, in the skin or blood, or soul, if you’re one who believes in that sort of thing. In a way, you could compare to a variety of lycanthropy present at birth,” Eames says, because he has _definitely_ done his research.

Alphard nods, obviously satisfied with the answer. “It’s like lycanthropy, which can turn someone into a huge ruthless killing machine,” he says. “But werewolves lack control – which the ministry is giving to _some_ , with the creation of wolfsbane potion. And all a werewolf has to do to get it is register and agree to do a few things for the Ministry of Magic. But _we_ don’t need anything the Ministry could give us. We have an amazing natural ability they don’t have, and can’t have, and they want it. Badly.”

“They want to use us,” Eames says.

“Not just that,” Alphard says, and shakes his head. “They’ll usually settle for using us, yes, but they’d really prefer to _be_ us. Or to have our abilities, at least. Some of the metamorphmagi the Ministry gets their hand on – and won’t cause a public uproar about the disappearance – tend to end up as creatures more than people. They test us, and then we die.”

Alphard actually kneels in front of Eames’ chair, his gloved hands holding tightly onto Eames’s bare ones. “ _Never tell anyone_ ,” he says.

And that’s genuine concern on his – their – face. Eames is slowly beginning to realize that maybe Alphard Hurst isn’t as much of a lone wolf ne’er-do-well as he’d like Eames to think. “I understand,” Eames says.

It’s as much of a promise as Eames is willing to give and they both know it. Alphard doesn’t call him on it. He just squeezes Eames’ hands and says, “Be cautious.”

They move on.

Eames gets a small tattoo on his back – left shoulder blade, to be precise – because Alphard won’t let him even shift his toes before he gets a totem and really, the man’s right about tattoos. They do it the muggle way, leaving ink and blood, and it’s fine. Oddly refreshing, almost. Alphard also demands he get a _second_ tattoo when he’s not around – while shifting to cover the first one, of course. Eames understands the caution, but that just seems a tad closer to paranoia.

He starts small. Hair color, toes, nails, all the things babies do naturally. Time is difficult to keep track of, but he’s fairly sure it’s only a day or two before he’s back up to changing his hands and arms and legs and cartilage, mostly nose and ears. When Eames starts getting impatient, Alphard has taken to telling him _some metamorphmagi can’t even get this far_ and Eames has to bite his tongue from pointing out that Alphard has kept up the same damn shift for weeks now, even if it’s (probably) only his head.

A few days later, Eames gets to turn into adult-Eames, height and all. The day after that Eames gets to turn into whoever he wants so long as they’re male, and Eames just goes with what he knows _best_ , which is Bertie Snorkins glaring at him from the mirror.

Alphard lets out an amused snort, which is surprising, and sets a hand on Eames-as-Bertie’s shoulder. “Merry Christmas,” he says, obviously finding this _hilarious_ for some reason. Eames is too busy thinking about the Christmas presents he didn’t get to give to try and puzzle the other man’s sense of humor out.

Eames turns into Evanthe easily enough, almost easier than Bertie thanks to how much work he put into her. Alphard seems particularly pleased with Evanthe, nodding and saying, “Make people up more often. It’s safer to be a new face than a face that might have a double lurking around somewhere.”

He turns into professors. He turns into random imagined old ladies, into angry ten year old boys, into his mother, turns himself into everything and everyone but his friends. He mimics Alphard’s shifts, follows whatever face and body he turns into for two seconds and then shifts back into his adult-Eames face again.

“Your abilities are impressive,” Alphard says one day, after Eames is left honest-to-God wheezing after the speed of shifting he’s been going, trying to mimic Alphard as fast as possible. The man’s a morphing machine. “Now I can only hope you some day have the wisdom to know when and when not to use them.”

Without another word, Alphard unlocks the door, grabs Eames by the arm, and tosses him out into the hallway. “Good luck, Eames,” he says, and shuts the door.

Eames is left staring at the wood for a while. And then staring at the unfamiliar hallway he’s in.

“Well, that was anticlimactic,” he mutters to himself, and somehow manages to find his way back to the Slytherin dormitories.

He’s not quite sure what he looks like or what rumors have been spread about his disappearance, but the Slytherins in the common room (already full again – it must be the first day of the term, or the night before; time is confusing now) part for him, not even whispering as he heads up the stairs and dumps himself into his bed. He’ll deal with the very strange world outside of Alphard’s room in the morning.


	4. Chapter 4

He wakes up in the early morning. The _very_ early morning, if the clock on his nightstand and its 3:30 AM can be trusted. Eames would try to get back to sleep if there wasn’t an Arthur sitting on the trunk at the end of his bed. Alphard never played this trick and never bothered to do anything remotely this cruel, so Eames has to frown at the probably-imagined Arthur for a moment before turning his face mostly off the pillow and saying, “Arthur?”

The silhouette’s spine snaps to attention, which means it is _definitely_ Arthur, but he doesn’t look over. “Go to sleep, Eames,” he says.

“What are you doing here?” Eames asks. Or intends to ask. It’s a muffled, mostly gibberish sound that’s half spoken into his pillow. He blames the exhaustion for the fact he’s suddenly making grabby hand motions towards Arthur.

Arthur, bizarrely enough, actually goes along with the grabby hands, albeit with a frown. “Are you alright?”

“You stupid Hufflepuff,” Eames says, because he should’ve expected the badger mafia to come try to stand guard on him. “Have you slept?”

Arthur is obviously close enough to understand that much, at least, so when he starts in with the deflection via caring about poor little Eames’ emotional stability or whatever the hell Hufflepuffs worry about, Eames just waves it away and grabs a bit of Arthur’s robes, pulling him down. He’s obviously surprised (and tired) because he actually takes the space on the bed that Eames has left for him to take. “ _Sleep_ ,” Eames says.

“God, you drooled on your pillow,” Arthur hisses out.

“Arthur, darling, _please_ can we just go to sleep?” Eames whines out, which, he will realize in a moment of absolute mortification in the morning, is something he most assuredly thought he’d never say to Arthur if he got the man in bed with him.

“Fine,” Arthur says, and pulls the curtains closed. Eames tosses one of the blankets off himself so that it cocoons Arthur. Arthur wraps up in it with a definite sound of amusement, and it’s the last thing Eames hears before he’s out like a light once again.

When he wakes up at a still-early 6:30 in the morning, there’s nothing but the cool simple scent of Arthur left in bed.

Oddly enough, Eames is fine with that.

 

Illegal Legilimency Club doesn’t bother with being secret for probably the first time ever when Eames slumps his way into the Great Hall, still exhausted but unable to sleep restfully. All four of them are there, with Mal grabbing him in a fierce hug, accompanied by Dom after a moment, and then Yusuf and even Arthur are there hugging him. Eames doesn’t even know what to do, other than think so many people are going to kill him because they’ll be jealous that he has the most attractive people in school glomping onto him at the same time.

“We were so worried!” Mal gasps into his ear, genuinely crying on his shoulder, and the others let go so Eames can actually manage to hug her back and try to tell her that everything’s _fine_ , he’s back now, he’s unharmed and was never in any danger.

“This was a good thing,” Eames says. “That thing I was worried about is fixed now.”

“Oh thank God,” Yusuf says, and he’s got another person hugging him again.

“Maybe we could do this somewhere outside of the Great Hall, hmm?” Eames says, and Dom and Arthur manage to clear the way for Eames to inch them all back out of the door. Mal is willing to let go, but removing Yusuf is like removing a very stubborn adhesive.

Thankfully, Arthur is there to help out, and the minute Yusuf has stepped back Eames is thinking maybe he should have kept a hold on him because Arthur is glaring at Yusuf, and Arthur’s hand is twitching like he’s barely restraining himself from grabbing his wand, and Arthur looks _furious_. “You knew what was wrong,” he accuses Yusuf.

“So did I, obviously, yet I’m not the one being backed into a wall,” Eames says, and puts a hand on Arthur’s shoulder. He shrugs it off, of course, because that’s just what Arthur does. “I had him swear to keep it a secret on pain of terrible painful things. If you should be angry at anyone, it’s me.”

“And the problem’s fixed now?” Dom asks, eyes sharp and very intent. Eames absently wonders if he’s trying to read his mind. _Good luck with that_ , Eames thinks.

“It is,” Eames says. “Hopefully forever. Now, is it acceptable if I go eat some toast?”

“We’re having a club meeting tonight,” Mal declares.

“Of course we are, I still have presents to deliver,” Eames says, and gives them a quick smile before heading back to his usual spot at the Slytherin table.

As he expected, he’s getting some fairly nasty looks.

“Oh, like you don’t network,” Eames snaps at one of the worst offenders, and concentrates on his toast and orange juice instead.

 

Classes are boring. This is nothing new. The fact he’s getting away completely cleanly and not even once shouted at for the fact he’s finishing up Illegal Legilimency Club’s Christmas presents instead of doing the actual work is a little different, though. He assumes it’s because they all think he’s horribly traumatized. Eames is not about to look this particular gift horse in the mouth.

The presents are done just in time for the meeting, and he makes a point of wrapping them in cheery Christmas paper even if it’s already January, with nametags and bows on every one. He has to shrink them for innocuous transportation up to their room, of course, but alteration has always been his strong suit.

When he steps into the room, it’s still decked out for a Christmas party he wasn’t there for. The tree is practically coated in tinsel and gaudy flashing ornaments, an atrocity that Eames loves immediately but can’t imagine Arthur could put up with. It’s almost too much even for Eames.

Which, he realizes after a moment, is exactly why they did it. It does an excellent job of making him feel like an asshole. Eames tries to blame Alphard for the whole _gone for a month_ thing, but it’s his own fault he was close to exploding and needed the help 10 years earlier than expected.

Yusuf’s the next to arrive, carrying beakers of what Eames is hoping is candy. It’s probably candy, but one can never be certain with Yusuf. He’s grinning at Eames, and it’s barely two seconds before he’s dropped the beakers and supplies in his mad scientist corner and grabbed Eames for another bear hug. “I am _so_ glad everything’s under control.”

“Alphard said I should thank you for finding him,” Eames says, and after a moment hugs him back. Lightly. Eames really does feel like a terrible asshole, even when Yusuf knows what was going on. “Is that why I got the cufflinks early?”

“God no, I didn’t even know he’d actually come. I gave you those in case Annabelle’s boyfriend actually managed to attack you,” Yusuf says with a laugh, and lets go, still holding him by the shoulders. “I am _so_ glad.”

“As am I,” Eames agrees. “I would’ve preferred a different timetable and circumstances, but it worked.” He points at Yusuf, remembering what he still has to do, paranoia or not. “Speaking of, I’ll need your help with one final thing, if you’re willing.”

“Of course I’m willing,” Yusuf says, and finally drops his arms. “Whatever you need.”

Dom, Mal, and Arthur (an interesting combination; Arthur usually arrives on his own) step in only a few moments later, each of them carrying a single present. _Oh dear_ , Eames thinks, because for some reason he’d forgotten about the receiving part of Christmas. Mal gives him another firm hug and a kiss on the cheek, and Dom gives him one of those shake-and-one-armed hugs that seem to be the manly thing these days. Arthur seems unable to even look at him for longer than a few moments to say Merry Christmas and then sit himself in the windowsill, halfway to curling himself up.

“That’s not the best placement for opening your amazing gift,” Eames calls from where they’re all sitting cross-legged in front of the astoundingly gaudy Christmas tree. Arthur grudgingly joins them in the circle, between his cousin and cousin-in-law, and Eames frowns. “Are you feeling alright, love?”

“I’ll be fine,” Arthur says, and that is _obviously_ the end of the conversation.

“Eames opens his first and then we can get this ‘amazing’ gifts of his,” Mal declares, and scoots a green package with red trim on it across the floor. “Merry Christmas, Eames.”

Mal’s gift is an art set that has Eames wondering _how did you know_ and Mal, pleased, rolling her eyes and replying, “We read each other’s minds, how could I _not_?” Eames hasn’t indulged in painting in a very long time. It might be time to pick it back up.

Likewise, Dom’s gift is one only a mind reader could pick out, particularly since Eames has never been able to remember the name or author of the book in his hand, only had the same bloody quote trapped in his mind for years with no idea where it came from. “Oh god, it’s _Dickens_?” Eames laughs. Dom just shrugs, obviously just as amused. He’s even put a convenient bookmark at the appropriate page to prove it’s the right book.

“What’s Dickens?” Yusuf asks.

Eames clears his throat and recites, “ _My guiding star always is, Get hold of portable property._ ”

“That’s awful,” Arthur says.

“It’s brilliant,” Eames says. “Just listen to those words. It’s thief poetry.”

Arthur gives him a tight humoring-you smile, and hands over his present for Eames, but not before saying, “Oh, wait,” and taking it back to put a very plain brown box in Eames’ hands instead. “This isn’t a present, it’s just returning something.”

His atrocious paisley green robes are inside.

“This must have been physically painful for you to rescue,” Eames says, gaping at him. Even Alphard couldn’t stand to have them in the same room. He smiles at Arthur. “Thank you, Arthur.”

Good god, is Arthur _blushing_? “Okay, present,” he says, and practically throws the package at Eames. It doesn’t make any breakable noises when he catches it, thank goodness.

Inside is a coat, of the muggle variety, that’s a tan color and made of very nice fabric and looks very pretty. Eames really wishes he knew more about muggle clothing right now. The fact Mal makes a squeaky noise when he pulls it all the way out of the box is probably a good thing, though.

“I know you’ve always been around wizards, but muggle stuff isn’t always bad,” Arthur says, oddly awkward. “And it might be a little big, but I charmed it so it’ll resize-”

“I don’t think muggle stuff is _bad_ , I just don’t know enough about it to judge,” Eames says, and smiles at him. “Thank you, Arthur.”

“Thank you _very much_ , you mean,” Mal hisses out, like she’ll strangle Eames to death if he doesn’t show appropriate appreciation.

“I really will treasure it,” Eames says honestly. “Even wear it, when there’s occasion. Which I am assuming just means ‘outdoors’ and ‘not in uniform,’ yes?” When Arthur and Mal both give him a nod, he says, “Then that is when I’ll wear it. Thank you, Arthur, would you like your present now?”

“Yes,” Arthur says, a bit more emphatic than necessary, but Eames is pretty sure it’s because the present has left something incredibly awkward in the air. He doesn’t bother dissecting it at the moment, though – there’s far more fun things to concern himself with. Namely, passing all of their presents out.

“Now, you have to open them at the same time,” Eames says. “That way you all get the explanation at the same time.”

“These presents need explaining?” Dom asks, obviously worried.

“Arthur had to explain his present,” Eames defends.

“ _Vaguely_ explain it,” Yusuf mutters, and Eames isn’t going to touch that right now because _presents_.

He unshrinks the four wrapped packages, and keeps the fifth unwrapped item shrunk and stuck in his back pocket. Eames already knows which goes to who, but he makes sure to put enough theater into it that they get fidgety – teens or not, the anticipation is always what makes Christmas fun. When he says they can rip them open, they actually _do_ , even Arthur discarding his cautious unwrapping tendencies to get to the object within.

Eames expected the glancing between encyclopedic-sized books that everyone just got, but he didn’t expect the vaguely smug look on Arthur’s face. Again: analyze later. 

“You’re all color coded, if you can’t tell. So am I,” Eames adds, and unshrinks his own titanic book. “Red for Mal, blue for Dom, green for Yusuf, black for Arthur, and white for me since I forgot to give myself a color. Now, if you’ll open your books…?”

He waits for everyone to comply. They all page through them, looking at the empty pages with five separate sections, and four color-coded dividers. “I’m not done transferring the old letters into the books, but if you set your wand to the inside front cover and state the club’s name, it’ll activate.”

The four begrudging murmurs of _illegal legilimency club_ alone is worth every second he’s worked on these books. Eames is probably a little too enthusiastic when he does it, but he’s probably too enthusiastic about these books in general. Then again, when Mal’s activates and she lets out a “ _Merde_ ,” he feels a lot more justified.

“The first section – the largest section – is for shared notes and findings. The research notes we’ve already done are getting copied in, and the book will line them up based on author, date, and so forth. I was planning to make an index but ran out of time. The other sections, the color coded ones, are for general correspondence from your book to another so we don’t have to wait for owls if something like the pensieve comes up again. Everything’s permanent, though, so if you misspell or spill an ink bottle, you can’t edit or clean it up.” Eames pauses. “Again, I’m working on it.”

“You’re a genius,” Yusuf says, and Eames decides to not tell them it’s really just a five-way protean charm with some bells and whistles tossed in. Particularly considering how _surprised_ everyone but Dom looks. 

“There are pinstripes on my book,” Arthur says.

“ _Small_ ones,” Eames points out.

Arthur is actually smiling. “They’re supposed to be small.”

“I’d be happy to help you figure out the indexing,” Dom says, obviously just as thrilled as everyone else and even more excited about the potential ways of using them. “Just tell me what you need. This is amazing, Eames!”

They all go huddle in a corner to start trying them out, but Mal stays back, clutching her vixen-red tome to her chest and smiling at him. “You lie very well, but I’m not fooled,” she says, and gives him a small kiss on the cheek. “White is a good match for you.”

“Simple and reliable, just like me,” Eames says, and Mal laughs at the ridiculous lie with him, bumping their shoulders together for a moment before they join the others and play with their new toys.

There’s punch, and there’s candy, and there’s plenty of butterbeer, and the night goes rollicking on until Dom’s 1AM alarm goes off and they regrettably separate, heading off to their own dormitories. Arthur walks with him, which isn’t particularly unusual since Hufflepuff’s dormitory is closer to his than to either of the towers, but Arthur is dreadfully tense. Eames doesn’t pester him about it, though. He just keeps walking with his new belongings tucked in tiny form in his pocket.

“I’m sorry,” Arthur suddenly says, stopping in the middle of the hall. His hands are covering his face, which is bizarre. “Eames, I’m so, so sorry. I was right there and all I did was _stare_ , and I will never forgive myself-”

“Arthur,” Eames says, because he has no idea what to do. “Arthur, it’s fine.”

“No it’s _not_ , Eames,” Arthur says, halfway to a shout. “He grabbed you and I was too busy being confused to _do_ anything and then you were missing for a _month_ -”

“Arthur,” Eames snaps out. It seems to jolt Arthur out of whatever insanity this is, and Eames can’t stop just staring at him, frowning at him. “You remember that it was a good thing, yes? I’m not maybe-dying anymore.”

“You were _dying?!_ ” Arthur genuinely shouts, shouts so loudly it echoes through the (thankfully deserted) hallway and probably into the stairwells. Eames should probably be surprised he’s been shoved against a wall, but he really isn’t. “What the _fuck_ , Eames, you didn’t think that was important information?!”

“Well it isn’t important anymore, and it was only _maybe_ ,” Eames says, and gently removes Arthur’s hand from his robes. He’s surprised Arthur lets him, to be honest, but he’s not exactly the collected, violent, whip-quick person Eames is used to right now. He doesn’t let go of Arthur’s hand. “Everything’s fine now, alright? You have nothing to apologize for.”

Arthur shakes his head. “It doesn’t matter if it was a kidnapping for _good_ , Eames. I still just let him take you and did nothing but stand there.”

“If I suddenly saw another version of you pop out of nowhere, I’d be fairly surprised too,” Eames comments, and squeezes his hand. “Really, Arthur. You’ve nothing to feel bad about. I have a feeling anyone would have done the same exact thing.”

“We’re not just anyone,” Arthur says, and pulls away. 

Eames should probably follow him, but the set of his shoulders and the determined gait taking Arthur further from him with every step makes him stay in place. Arthur doesn’t even glance back, but Eames watches him go until he turns down a hallway Eames can’t follow him into.

He goes home and falls into his bed, still somehow unused to the idea of pajamas, and wraps up in his sheets and wishes he could sleep for more than three hours at a time.


	5. Chapter 5

Life is abysmally normal. For almost two months, things continue as they always did, albeit with more attention paid to Eames than he ever had from Slytherin. Ever since his return, they’ve started to realize he’s not just a pleasant flirty loner whose best friend is the only appropriately devious Ravenclaw. The group hug has also started _rumors_ , but they don’t go anywhere beyond whispers and glances and the occasional note. Eames thrives on gossip, even when he’s the subject.

Arthur, well. Things with Arthur are _strange_ , particularly since Eames knows that some part of Arthur _like_ -likes Eames, even if it’s Eames-as-Bertie-Snorkins. It’s a very strange position to be in, and Eames doesn’t like it. Yusuf continues to find it hilarious, Dom continues to remain oblivious to everything but Mal and learning (honestly, _why_ is he a Gryffindor?), Mal seems to flip between irritated, pitying, and amused, and Arthur is almost obsessive with his training. Eames thinks it might be guilt-driven, but then the rest of the students start to mention OWLs and Eames thinks, _right, those_ and ends up doing the same exact thing.

Life goes on. It’s all bland and simple and Eames doesn’t even bother shifting into people, just finds himself enjoying life as Eames-as-Eames a lot, particularly now that he isn’t worried he’s going to explode or shift to death. He spends the time he usually used for fine-he-admits-it-was-stalking to actually talk to his friends, and even does some more in-depth research into general organic magic instead of metamorphmagi. Sometimes he wonders about Alphard, and sometimes he wonders about his mother, and sometimes he finds himself wondering if Alphard was his father ( _incredibly_ unlikely) or if there’s more to the family than he knows.

_Oh well_ , he usually ends up thinking.

Life continues. And then for some reason the rumors start to get nasty.

He assumes it’s something Arthur has done, probably yet another flawlessly ruthless defense of his Hufflepuffs, which has put such a bee in the Slytherins’ bonnet. It takes some time to really get to Eames, since the gossip doesn’t seem to reach Arthur because Arthur scares the pants off most reasonable people with any sense of self-preservation, and if Slytherins care about one thing, it’s themselves.

But when one of them calls Arthur a mudblood, even quietly in the common room, Eames ends up putting the fourth year who said it in the infirmary with twenty different snakebites, requiring five different types of anti-venom.

He gets detention and loses Slytherin fifty points. He doesn’t really care.

“That was a little excessive, don’t you think?” Yusuf mentions in their shared charms class, because Yusuf is a potions genius but can’t do a damn thing with his wandwork. He can transfigure, but anything other than that, he’s hopeless. Sixth years don’t even usually _take_ charms. He sits with Eames because Eames is the best at charms and Flitwick seems to think poor helpless Yusuf might learn from proximity. “And how do you even know how to summon snakes?”

“I really have no idea,” Eames says, and shrugs. “I’ve read so many spells at this point that if it comes to mind, I use it. Seems to have worked so far.”

Yusuf shakes his head. “Nobody’s told Arthur why you did it, and I’d advise you not tell him either,” he says sternly. Eames nods, because like hell any of the Slytherins are going anywhere near Arthur at this point and nobody but Yusuf knows about it out of house. “Now, help me turn this damn pillow into a spider.”

It doesn’t last, of course, because Arthur has methods of making people talk, namely asking them and letting his reputation precede him. The first year Slytherin probably shrieked it out, to be honest. Shrieked it out and begged for his life. Arthur really needs to work on his public image.

“You’re really stupid,” Arthur tells him.

“I’m aware of that, thank you,” Eames says.

Apparently the first year had mentioned Eames shouting something about leaving Arthur the hell alone or there would be consequences, but the entire affair is really a blur of red for him, and if Arthur’s willing to drop it, so is Eames.

Except he doesn’t, because in the middle of Illegal Legilimency Club he starts snickering, shoves Eames slightly, and says, “My hero.”

Eames decides to count that as a win.

But, of course, things can’t always go well for Eames. Professor Browning, the most impartial and seemingly unbiased to the point of boring professor that Hogwarts has probably ever known, decides to call him in and say, “Do you have anger issues, Mr. Eames?”

“No, sir,” Eames says. “I just believe in showing people respect.”

“A belief you support by sending Miss Turrow to the infirmary for three days,” Browning says, eyebrows raised. “You’ve never shown this sort of behavior before…well. _Before_. I’d like you to speak with someone.”

Most of the school still believes he was abducted and tortured for a month, but the majority of the professors are aware it was ‘emergency medical leave’, even if only two professors (the headmaster and the harmless Professor Vector) know what the medical concern was. Eames shakes his head. “I’m fine, sir. This was just a disagreement between two students, is all. It happens every day.”

“Eames,” Browning says, and Eames knows that tone of voice. It’s the sound of a brick wall you can only break yourself against. “You’re going to speak to someone.”

Browning sets the appointment for next Tuesday.

Eames tries very hard to not panic, because if there’s one type of person who is likely to try legilimency on him, it’s a psychiatrist. Some of them even have therapeutic licenses for it.

“How do you make occlumency look _natural_?” he hisses out in that week’s club session, trying very hard to stop pacing but doing a horrible job of it. “They’ll know if it’s a genuine block of their legilimency, they’ll know if-”

“Take control of it,” Dom says, looking surprised at the idea which just popped into his mind. “Send him to a thought or memory that _you_ want him to see.”

“Or make one up,” Yusuf adds. They all know Eames can do it, even if they’re not quite sure how. Eames is pretty sure it’s the fact he can physically change the shape and nerve pathways in his brain, but that’s information they don’t really need to know at the moment.

Eames sighs, and after a moment grabs the pensieve. “I’ll need your help to make them up in time,” Eames tells the team.

They don’t even question his need for an entire fake month, just help him concoct a private medical center and a sudden life-threatening disease. Yusuf invents medications and symptoms and the pain that Eames must have felt with each of them. Mal and Dom create people and landscapes he can see out of his window, nurses and doctors and tilework and handwriting. Arthur helps Eames figure out how to guide a legilimens to the fake memories and _only_ the fake memories, helps him fuzz out reality.

He knows Arthur spots Alphard-as-adult-Eames a few times in his mind, sees them stuck in a small room with nothing but each other and a sense of _effort_ , but Arthur doesn’t say a word about it. He simply helps Eames cement his defenses and pathways.

They’re at it until the sun is rising, shooting orange and pink through their room’s window, and Eames can’t think of anything to repay them other than a heartfelt _thank you_ and swearing to himself that he’ll do anything to return the favor for each and every one of them.

 

Doctor Howard Pattern is a simple-looking man wearing plain blue robes with a pale face but politely friendly smile. It’s 4pm, the most reasonable time Eames can imagine for an appointment – after class, before dinner. It’s considerate. Considering Pattern floo powdered his way here just for this appointment, Eames doesn’t trust it one bit.

“Good afternoon, Mr. Eames,” Pattern says from the chair. Eames is left a couch. There’s no way in hell he’s laying down on it, so he sits politely on one of the sides, leaning against the arm of the sofa. “How has your day been?”

“Average, as expected,” Eames says, and smiles without meeting Pattern’s eyes. “Haven’t tossed any bespelled snakes at anyone, if that’s what you mean.”

Pattern laughs. “Oh don’t worry, I know that was a rare event. Five years of barely fulfilling the expected Slytherin quota of hexing other students isn’t exactly making you look like you have anger issues.” He shifts, in a comfortable way. “Now, why do you think you’re here?”

Eames knows he can’t keep avoiding Pattern’s eyes, so he glances up and _yes_ , there it is, a definite attack on his mind. He’s nowhere near as skilled as their club – years of weekly practice have made them _very_ good at this sort of thing – so it’s easy enough to shift Pattern’s prying towards the other memories. Eames in a private clinic, alone and in pain. Eames staring out the window, exhausted. Eames shouting at his mother to get out of the room in a fit of angst and fury (one of Eames’ personal favorites). 

Pattern may not be a pro at legilimency, but he’s definitely an expert in not showing he’s doing it. Thankfully, that’s what _Eames_ is best at, too.

“I’m guessing it’s because of my recent absence,” Eames says. 

Pattern nods, jots something quick down on his pad. “Do you understand why people would be concerned?”

“I do,” Eames says. “They’re wrong, of course, but I understand.”

And Pattern is in his head _again_ , fast enough that Eames almost doesn’t catch it. He directs him to one of the most authentic memories, since Eames actually considered doing it during the darkest days of his potential death – Eames is sitting up in his private hospital room, writing a goodbye letter chalk full of emotion and feeling, written straight to Arthur in an act of longing and desperation. If _that_ isn’t convincing, he doesn’t know what would be.

Pattern’s fast, but he’s nowhere near as wily as Eames.

Pattern nods. “Dealing with illness is difficult for anyone, particularly a fifteen year old with their entire life ahead of them,” he says.

It’s a good excuse to break eye contact, and Eames takes it – classic look of avoidance, discomfort; it’s easy to shift his body language, especially in his own body. “I managed alright,” he says, quiet but also firm. 

“I’m sure you did.” There’s a pause. “There’s also the question of your departure,” Pattern adds. “The report says someone saw _you_ escorting yourself out of the Great Hall.”

Eames rolls his eyes and glances at Pattern, thinking _fond Arthur thoughts, amused exasperation, irritation with this meeting, someone else’s face (one of the made-up doctors Mal had provided) accompanying the hands pulling him away_. “Do you have any idea how much spiked punch Arthur had drunk at that point?”

“Yes, actually,” Pattern says, and it’s the first time Eames notices that it’s not a pad Pattern’s writing on, it’s a single sheet of parchment on top of a rather ominous looking beige file. Damn Arthur’s protective instincts and habit of going through appropriate legal channels when dealing with an abduction. Pattern frowns for a moment, looking indecisive, before saying, “Is there any chance I could see your wand for a moment?”

_Oh that is not good_ , Eames thinks, and forgets to redirect Pattern instead of outright block him when Pattern tries to slip back in.

“You-“ Pattern begins, and Eames thinks _fuck it_ and dives right in.

Pattern doesn’t even have a chance to try occlumency, because Eames is _tricky_ , Eames is _cunning_ , and he can even get into Arthur’s mind a tenth of the time these days. He grabs at Pattern’s every thought and memory about Eames, and sees a few very important things. First is that Doctor Howard Pattern really is a psychiatrist, but happens to be a psychiatrist who is also an Unspeakable. Secondly, the Department of Mysteries is _very_ keen on getting a student of the notable metamorphmagus ‘Alphard Hurst’ and they’re very certain Eames is that student. Third, Browning was an Unspeakable until his godson began school at Hogwarts and Pattern thinks it’s a shame but is glad Browning is gone because Pattern thought he was very creepy. And finally, Pattern was effectively fooled by Eames until the wand question and the legilimency attack right this second, and he is currently trapped in his own mind screaming and panicking and trying to claw his way out of the onslaught of Eames, who is batting his attempts away like he’s nothing but an irritating fly.

“Stay down,” Eames says when he’s done and Pattern is a gibbering mess in the chair. He considers levitating Pattern onto the couch, but decides against it, instead running out the door and, after a moment of hesitation, running for the Slytherin dorms. 

He pulls out the Illegal Legilimency Club compendium while he runs, and doesn’t have time to be subtle. He grabs his wand, activates the damn thing, and writes _HELP_ in large red letters on the very first page. After he nearly runs into a wall, he stops to catch his breath and add _MoM knows am mmm, heded for Slyth, leving Hgwrts ASAP_. He shuts the book and reshrinks it with little effort and returns to the task at hand – namely, getting to his room, getting to the only potentially useful floo powder exit he knows of (the Slytherin common room, which some rather pathetic people use to take trips back home to their parents).

By the time he gets there, Yusuf and Dom are standing by the entrance. He has no idea how they got there that fast, but he’s not going to wonder, he’s just going to be _very very grateful_.

“Mal’s inside packing your things,” Dom says quickly, and Eames doesn’t bother asking how she got in.

“I’ve got a distraction ready, hopefully it’ll pull them off your trail for long enough. I was waiting for you to get here,” Yusuf says just as quickly, and after a millisecond of hesitation he pulls Eames into a quick hug. And then he’s running off far faster than humans can run. Eames assumes it’s some kind of charm, and is suddenly very proud of his best friend.

“Where’s your exit?” Dom asks.

“Secondary fireplace in the common room,” Eames says, and doesn’t bother explaining circumstances. “Do you happen to have floo powder on you?”

“Arthur’s getting some,” Dom says, and follows behind Eames as they jog into the common room. The few students that are left in it are staring at Mal, who is currently levitating Eames’ trunk down the stairs and shrinking it so well it’s practically pocket-sized.

“Take your robes off,” Mal instructs, and Eames doesn’t ask, he just drops his Slytherin robes and grabs the trunk. He’s wearing nothing but trousers and a white shirt and Yusuf’s cufflinks, since he pulls his tie off as well.

It’s only a moment before Arthur is swinging the Slytherin passageway open and shoving a bag of what’s obviously floo powder into his hands. Next is a slip of paper with an address in Arthur’s handwriting. “Go there, then _run_ ,” Arthur says.

Mal hands him the coat Arthur gave him for Christmas, and Eames slips it on easily before heading for the fireplace. He doesn’t know what spell Arthur casts, but the entire room is suddenly completely silenced, not even the crackle of the fire audible. He has his trunk in one pocket, and his Illegal Legilimency Club compendium in the other, wand in hand, and he’s about to be on the lam for what could be the rest of his life.

Arthur can’t hear it, but Eames makes a point of winking at him and saying, “Goodbye, darling,” before tossing the floo powder into the blaze and heading wherever Arthur’s sending him.

 

The first thing Eames hears when he steps out of green flames is a shriek and a plate dropping. A woman with graying hair is staring at him from the nearby kitchen.

It only takes a glance around to realize he’s in a muggle house.

It only takes a glance at the family pictures and portraits to realize he’s in _Arthur’s_ house.

The gravity of that fact hits home fast, and he takes a moment to nod politely at _Arthur’s mother_ before running out the very obvious front door, and he keeps running. He shifts into an older man, early forties with dark hair and a slightly untrimmed goatee. Surprisingly, the coat shifts sizes with him. The pants not so much, but he’s kept himself relatively short and his waist thin and the only real issue is that his shirt is now indecently tight and his pants are too short.

He stops in front of some unknown building, made of dark brick with four stories and dim windows and he has no idea what to do. He walks in and looks at the second door, a glass one with a lock he doesn’t dare spell open, not when they might track his wand.

It’s only 7:00, he notes absently, and leans against a row of metallic boxes.

“ _Mike?_ ” A voice suddenly asks, and Eames jerks away from the wall. “ _Hey, I’ll buzz you in. 301, dude._ ”

There’s a buzzing noise, and the door makes a click noise that Eames would recognize anywhere. When he walks in, he considers the word _dude_ and decides his current appearance might not be the best idea, so he turns back into himself, albeit himself in about five years. Again, the coat shifts with him. He’ll have to send Arthur a very nice thank you note for that.

301 is the first room on the third floor, which is very logical. When he walks on the door, a smiling young man about the same age as Eames chose opens it. He frowns when he sees Eames. “You aren’t Mike.”

“That I am not,” Eames says pleasantly, and thinks back to the row of boxes. “I was wondering if I could use your bathroom, actually. My friend in 204 – Anne – isn’t in yet, and nature calls.”

“Oh,” the young man says, and then seems to mentally decide _why not_ and opens the door for him. “Bathroom’s to the right.”

“It’s the same floorplan, but thank you,” Eames says, putting enough humor in it that he hopes the man can’t tell he actually needed the directions. He doesn’t actually need the restroom, just uses the time to splash some water on his face and stare into the mirror for a moment, telling himself _he can do this_ , and then reminding himself he _must_ do this. He flushes the toilet, and walks back up.

Mike is in, it seems. And he has pizza. And is gaping at Eames. “Jesus, Pete, you didn’t say he’s-”

“Shut up, Mike,” Pete, the original young man, says.

“The prodigal Mike returns,” Eames says, grinning and putting his hands in his coat pockets, feeling that yes, his book and trunk are still in there. “Sorry for the temporary identity theft. It was desperate times.”

“I thought Anne was on vacation,” Pete says.

Eames frowns. “Really? We usually catch up on Tuesdays. I guess she forgot to mention it was this week.” He turns his grin rueful. “Well, I’m _very_ grateful you let me in, then.”

“Stay,” Mike says suddenly. “Eat pizza. Tell us about you and Anne. Tell me where you got that coat.”

_Excellent_ , Eames thinks, because this is what he’s best at. He takes the invitation and sits down and eats four slices of atrocious muggle pizza and talks about his ex-ish-boyfriend Arthur and how Anne’s the friend Arthur mostly got in the divorce-ish thing and Eames gets custody on Tuesdays.

He sleeps on their couch, cooks them omelets in the morning, and scores himself ten pounds for cab fare home. He also has a standing casual bed invitation, but, well. He’s fifteen, and they’re good folk. _And_ he doesn’t want to risk shifting when he falls asleep. He can cocoon himself up just fine on a couch, but a shared bed would be _much_ more difficult.

It goes on like that, shifting his face as needs change and his body when they change even more and buying nice-looking clothing at thrift stores, followed by cheaper department stores when he’s charmed enough people into paying for meals and nonexistent phone calls and cab fare and reciprocity for meals he cooks couples in their home. It’s like the previous summer, but much less fun. He learns his way around the muggle world, and every night he opens up his Illegal Legilimency Club compendium and reads the notes.

They start with demands for information that Eames is alright, which he gives vague answers to. They slowly change into updates on themselves and classes. Arthur informs Eames that OWLs are in a week and that he is in no way to come and take them. Eames replies that he is _thrilled_ to follow those directions. Yusuf vaguely informs him that there was trouble after his escape, and refuses to give details. Mal tells him the best gossip around Hogwarts, and Dom, surprisingly, tells him the _real_ gossip around their club.

He gets himself a job at a jazz club of all places, waiting tables as a nineteen-year-old ginger boy that nobody pinches. He poses (rather honestly) as a starving artist on Tuesdays and Saturdays, using the paints and materials Mal had given him to make some paintings that are, if Eames may be so bold, _fantastic_. Even if most of them are non-magical duplicates of wizard paintings that these people have never seen anything like. Muggles didn’t even have an absolutist movement and some of them are crazy for the things, so he has to tone it down with some muggle impressionism tossed into it.

Eames gets an apartment. Eames gets a landlady. Eames becomes much better friends than he expected with Pete and Mike. Eames considers going back to Arthur’s house, but never does. Sometimes, Eames forgets that his name isn’t actually James Hurst, that he isn’t actually 22, that (both of) his parents aren’t dead and he’s been struggling to get his feet back under him ever since his father Albert’s death left him more or less destitute. He learns to convert pence and pounds in his head instead of galleons and sickels and knuts. 

Eames turns sixteen, with a 23rd birthday party full of friends and coworkers and people that Eames starts to think he shouldn’t be lying to. But then Arthur – it’s always, always Arthur – will write something in the book that is just a delicate, Arthur-esque way of saying _it’s not safe, don’t come back_ , and Eames turns himself back into James Hurst.

He gets drunk – far, far too drunk – on Arthur’s birthday. He tells Mike and Pete all about Arthur, and how Arthur let him run away from his previous life and helped him sever ties and was amazing, and tells them to call him Eames, because that’s what Arthur called him. Anne never came back from her vacation, and Eames’ cover was never blown, and he keeps on being James Hurst until he can barely stand it. Eames sleeps (just sleeps) in their bed that night, and in the morning Pete tells him _you look so young when you sleep_. Eames doesn’t sleep in their apartment again.

He knows Arthur goes home for the summer, and he _knows_ where Arthur is, knows how to find his house, but doesn’t go. Because James Hurst left an Arthur back in some unknown city that James ran away from after his father died, and there’s rent to pay and adulthood to deal with at the tender age of sixteen.

Eames still adds to the book, though. Not just the personal sections, either. He writes down notes on observed social behaviors, writes a lot about the places he sees – he takes long walks, he takes buses out to places and landscapes and towns he’s never seen – and theorizes about ways to use that as a base and start implanting other things into memories and dreams like he had during his meeting with Doctor Pattern. Mal learns how to change her own memories and dreams. Eames wonders, idly, why her prose changes so drastically – from slashes of wit and turns of phrase to wispy tendrils and clouds of theories – when she figures it out. He contributes, even if it’s not the same sort of research. He’s still a member of the club.

The winter of what should be his sixth year at Hogwarts, he gets a note on the Yusuf correspondence area, inviting him to Mombasa for the holidays and giving him the address. Considering the other correspondence areas all hint at going ‘away’ for the holidays and that they ‘wish he could come’, he tells Yusuf to expect him.

“No offense, James, but I hope you don’t come back,” Mike says quietly when he tells them. “We’d miss you, but…honestly, we’re not who you need. This city isn’t what you need. Go back.”

“I can’t,” Eames says, but claps him on the shoulder anyway. “I’m a wanted man masquerading as a humble artist, running from the secret agents of our government.”

Mike snorts. “Right. And a wizard.”

“And a mind reader,” Eames adds. “Oh, and a shapeshifter. I’m a unique, delicate flower.”

Mike shoves him out of the door with a smile, and Eames? Well. Eames gets on a plane with an _excellent_ fake passport, the only magic he’s dared to perform the entire time he’s been away from Hogwarts, done four towns away in an old bomb shelter. He heads to Mombasa, and plans to try out just being _Eames_ again for a little while.


	6. Chapter 6

Mombasa greets him with heat and starlight when he gets through customs and onto the low-lit streets. The moon is bright enough that the lamps are almost unnecessary. He stays James Hurst while he walks, slowly aging himself back down to normal as he walks towards Yusuf’s long-remembered address. It’s no short walk, probably five miles from the airport, but all he has to carry is a backpack (albeit a backpack full of cautiously-shrunken items) and his shoes are comfortable and more than up to the task. He’s sixteen and his complete self, tattoo and all, by the time he gets to the average-looking house Yusuf seems to live in.

He doesn’t have to knock, which is novel. He steps up to the door and it swings open, a firm hand dragging him in before shutting the door behind him. Eames would object, except for the fact it’s a terribly familiar hand with tell-tale calluses.

“It’s so good to see you,” Yusuf says, and hugs Eames so hard he can barely breathe. Eames always seems to be a little slow on this hug thing, but he hugs back after squirming his arms out enough to manage it. “I know you kept saying you were alright, but I’m _so_ glad to actually _see_ you.”

“It’s good to see you too, Yusuf,” Eames says, and gently pries himself away. “And I know I’m probably being terribly inconsiderate, but I just walked five miles after getting off an eleven hour flight and would very much appreciate either a bed or a shower. Probably both.”

The idea of travel time seems to baffle Yusuf for a moment, but he catches himself and says, “Of course! Muggle travel seems terrible. We considered trying to get a portkey to you, but we didn’t know where exactly you happened to be.”

“And that’s how it should be,” Eames says, and follows Yusuf into the actually-enormous house. That certainly teaches him to trust appearances. Like a muggle. Really, he needs to shake Eames-as-James off and get back to being _Eames_. “Really, I can’t thank you all enough for helping me-”

“I’ll warn you right now, don’t even try to thank us for that when the others get here,” Yusuf says, actually turning around to point a stern finger in Eames’ face. “They’re under the impression that legilimency is what got you into this mess, and I haven’t bothered to correct them.” _That’s for you to do_ , Eames can read easily.

Eames just nods, and says, “I’ll tell them.”

“They’ve been puzzling out _mmm_ for a year now,” Yusuf mutters, and finally stops walking when he reaches a door on the third floor (god, Eames had forgotten how much wizards hate lifts). Inside, Eames notes with no little bit of amusement, there’s the subtlest hint of green to just about everything. “There’s an attached bath. The others are expected in the morning.”

“What time _is_ it?” Eames asks, because really he has no idea.

“About two in the morning,” Yusuf says. “They should be flooing in around ten.”

“Sleep it is, then,” Eames says, and smiles at Yusuf.

Yusuf doesn’t seem ready to leave. He opens his mouth, makes a vaguely word-like noise, and then shuts it. Yusuf frowns, and then after yet another pause he nods and says, “Goodnight, Eames,” and closes the door behind him.

_Well that was strange_ , Eames thinks, and doesn’t bother to change into pajamas. He strips down, falls into the (amazingly comfortable) bed, and falls asleep before he even registers how perfectly fluffy the pillow happens to be.

He doesn’t know how long he sleeps, but he feels wonderful when he wakes up. The shower is even more refreshing, after Eames remembers how to change the temperature. It’s only been a year or so, and he’s already losing touch with everyday activities in the wizarding world.

For some reason, that’s the first time he really gets _scared_ about this whole on-the-run-for-his-entire-life thing. Anxious, depressed, hopeless, worried, angry, exhausted, he’s dealt with those plenty. Fear, though? This ominous new awareness that life will never be what it was, what he’d hoped, or what he’d planned? It’s new, and very unwelcome.

But Eames is _ignoring_ that and instead pulls his suitcase out of his backpack and puts some clean clothes on. He has no idea what the layout of Yusuf’s house is like, but he steps out into the hallway without hesitating. He remembers he’s on the third floor and that’s enough of a start – find stairs and go down. It helps that he eventually realizes he can follow his nose into the kitchen, where Yusuf is cooking something delicious. Or ‘cooking’ Eames supposes, considering the pans and ingredients are moving on their own.

Yusuf is reading through a few books strewn across the titanic wooden table that takes up most of the room left in the kitchen. When Eames sees that Yusuf has his compendium out, he wonders if he should go fetch his own, but Yusuf spots him and shoves it away so he figures that’s a no.

They talk pleasantries, and then after Yusuf realizes Eames can’t and won’t tell him what he’s been up to, Yusuf starts to talk about the things Illegal Legilimency Club has learned without him. Mal’s actually achieving everything she set out to do, already a pro at legilimency and occlumency and now, it seems, she’s moving on to transplanting memories after precision _obliviate_ s.

“That’s a little bit terrifying,” Eames comments. And when Yusuf says that Dom’s only a step behind her, as ever, Eames wonders if even starting their little nerd club was a good idea. There are some things it’s just a bad idea to mess with. Reading minds, blocking minds, creating fake memories and dreams, those are fine. _Transplanting them_? It makes something inside Eames squirm.

“Arthur’s head of the dueling club now, but he still always makes it to our meetings,” Yusuf says, which Eames knew thanks to Dom (but Dom is not the best gossip so that’s _all_ Eames knows). “Just as terrifying and attractive as ever to you, I’ve no doubt. And I’m about to get my potions mastery certification, which is about bloody time since I’m teaching half the first year courses.”

“You’ve been a master since you were fourteen and everyone knows it,” Eames says, waving a hand disdainfully before returning to his breakfast.

Yusuf is quiet for a moment before saying, “I know you can’t tell me where you’ve been, but-”

“I paint, I work, I shift, I lie,” Eames says, and sighs. “I pay _rent_. The Eames of two years ago would be horrified.” The Eames of today is just as horrified if he lets himself actually think about it, but Yusuf doesn’t need to know that.

“Do you have friends?” Yusuf asks.

“My covers have friends,” Eames replies easily. He only has two covers, but Yusuf doesn’t need to know how _settled_ he really is in the muggle world. “I like some of them well enough.” He pauses. “Did my mother ever come looking for me?”

“I’m not sure you really want the answer to that,” Yusuf says.

“I probably don’t,” Eames agrees, and settles down to finish breakfast. The plates wash themselves, Yusuf barely notices, and Eames hesitantly – so very, very hesitantly – starts casting small spells of his own. He floats a book towards himself instead of standing up to get it. He makes notes in the margin of his book with his wand instead of pulling out a pen or pencil (or quill and ink, for that matter). He refills his cup with water after tapping it gently and saying a single word.

God, how he missed this.

“You know, I expected someone to floo in right behind me,” Eames comments, randomly charming things while they wait for the others’ arrival. “Ran like hell for three hours to get out of there, it turns out.”

That actually gets a laugh out of Yusuf, for some reason. “Arthur made sure that wasn’t going to happen.” When Eames quirks an inquisitive eyebrow, Yusuf grins. “He blew up the entire fireplace and the wall with it. He had detention every week until the end of fifth year, and being head of the dueling club is actually mandatory. Whether that’s to teach him control or teaching others how to spread mayhem I have no idea.”

Conveniently, that’s when three familiar faces roll out of a puff of green smoke, Arthur looking a little surprised while Dom and Mal step out like old pros. That moment, just looking at their maturing faces, suddenly makes Eames realize how much of life he’s missed – with both his friends _and_ himself. He doesn’t have time to dwell on it, though, since Mal immediately drags him out of the very comfortable armchair to squeeze him to death and half-cry French at him.

Dom gives him a firm manly shoulder shake when Mal lets go, but that eventually dissolves into an actual hug, which Mal then rejoins because they do _everything_ together, don’t they? 

He doesn’t even see Arthur coming. He just knows Mal and Dom are moving away, and then Arthur is there giving him a tight hug that is somehow different than the others, oddly possessive. “You’re alright?” Arthur asks.

“I’m safe, I can take care of myself,” Eames replies, and Arthur steps back towards Dom and Mal because that seems to be the protocol – hug Eames, and then move a minimum of four feet away. He tries to not feel cheated.

The plan for Christmas doesn’t actually involve presents, since buying Eames a present could have been suspicious and Eames buying them anything could have been dangerous, since it’s dangerous to even be in the wizarding community. He could have bought them muggle presents, but even after living with muggles for nearly a year the thought of gifting muggle things still left a sour taste in his painfully pureblood mouth. Instead, it was a conference for trying to improve their compendiums and do some experimentation with memories.

Or at least that was the plan before. To Eames’ disappointment, the club decided they couldn’t risk the pensieve through a floo and chose to keep it in the club room.

So really, Christmas ends up being sitting around talking and working on their books. They play a strange legilimens form of spin the bottle where you have to legilimens-fight whoever the bottle lands on. It leaves everyone exhausted and mocking each other’s memories, Eames particularly amused by Mal’s memory of sobbing over a dropped ice cream cone when she was _fourteen_ (“and hormonal!” Mal defends, but it’s still funny). Dom pulls that one time his sister decided to play dress-up with him in a fit of boredom, and Dom describes the transfigured mermaid outfit in excruciating detail, and thankfully was too amused by the outfits to notice his sister demanding specific hair changes along with it. He has no idea what Yusuf pulls out of Arthur, since he’s laughing too hard to actually tell anyone.

The questions about Eames only start in a vague sort of way around midnight. Mal asks if he’s happy (no, but Eames makes it sound like a yes), Dom asks if he’s keeping busy (yes, since paying bills is hard, but he’s not about to tell Dom that), and Arthur asks if he really feels safe (no, no no no, but he smiles and once again says _I can take care of myself_ instead).

It’s not until 4 in the morning, all of them flopped around on huge pillows and blankets in the comfortable first-floor room they’ve somehow charmed into looking like a more homey version of their club room, that Dom says, “So what’s ‘mmm’, anyway?”

They’re all half asleep, or fully asleep, but too excited to really stay awake or asleep for more than a couple hours. Regardless, the question seems to wake Yusuf, even if Mal and Arthur stay asleep. Yusuf gives Eames a Look, which he assumes means _tell him_ , but Eames ignores it because he’s going to tell _everyone_.

“I’ll tell you in the morning,” Eames says, and that seems good enough for Dom. He snuggles back against Mal (who is the big spoon, and Eames is not the least bit surprised) and falls asleep fast after that.

Yusuf doesn’t, though. “You’re telling them,” he states. “You owe it to them. I don’t care how, or when as long as it’s while you’re here-”

“I understand, Yusuf,” Eames says. He tries to be soothing but ends up snapping at him instead. It makes Arthur shift and mutter, but he doesn’t wake up. Eames takes a deep breath. “I’ll tell them tomorrow.”

They sleep. They wake up, and eat, and Eames can barely even pick at his food, nerves rattling around his stomach and making thinking difficult. He usually does well under pressure, but this is his _club_ , this is everyone he really cares about in the world. This is Arthur finding out. This is Yusuf having the chance to tell everyone how much of an idiot Eames really is.

It’s like ripping off a band-aid, Eames assumes, so when the dishes are doing themselves and they’ve all moved back into the now-cleared mock club room, he clears his throat and says, “I have to tell you all something.”

The fact they look more expectant than surprised is telling. Eames decides to take it as a good sign. He takes a deep breath. “I wasn’t under threat because of legilimency or anything. I was abducted because I’m…different.”

He hadn’t expected this to be so difficult. Dom looks expectant, Mal looks concerned, Yusuf looks like he’s about ready to shout it out for him, and Arthur looks very, very tense. 

“Oh, sod it,” Eames says, squeezes his eyes shut, and morphs into fourteen-year-old Bertie Snorkins. He makes it fast – like ripping off a band-aid, he reminds himself. The shift barely takes one second, a ripple of flesh that probably looks more than a little bizarre compared to the usual rate of transformation.

When Eames-as-Bertie opens his eyes, Mal and Dom look shocked. He doesn’t have time to look at Arthur, because Arthur’s fist hits him right in the jaw the minute he turns to look. And that is a _very_ bad sign, since he’d long ago outgrown the habit of physical violence, unless something _really_ gets to him. It’s not just one punch, either. There’s a significant gap between the punches, but the minute Eames-as-Bertie recovers enough to look back at Arthur, there’s another fist to his side, to his face again, to his gut that leaves him hunched over and gasping.

“ _No_ , Arthur!” he can hear Yusuf say, and by the time Eames-as-Bertie can glance up, he sees both Yusuf and Dom have him restrained.

Arthur’s a smart man – sometimes terrifyingly smart. Eames knew he’d figure it out fast, and picking Bertie was just the easiest way to get all (well, most) of the immoral things he’s done with his metamorphmagus abilities out of the way. And Arthur also has to know why he picked Bertie, because he knows Arthur probably ran through every syllable and second of their conversation before Alphard came for him.

_I turned into Bertie because he was an excuse to be near you. You thought you had a crush on Bertie because I was Bertie_ , Eames is telling him. It makes perfect sense that Arthur wants to beat the shit out of him, and Eames accommodates him by shifting further back into his own body with every punch.

“Jesus _fuck_ , Eames.” Arthur looks more like he’s going to vomit than he looks angry, though. “All this time,” Arthur says, over and over again. It starts as a shout and somehow even three syllables seem hard to get out, volume dropping with each word until he’s barely choking it out.

“Arthur, I can be anyone you want, any _thing_ you want, please, Arthur, just tell me who you want me to be, Arthur, _please_ ,” Eames babbles frantically, and barely notices Mal is dragging Eames out of the room and shutting the door behind them.

“He doesn’t think like we do, Arthur! It’s just a shell to him,” Yusuf is shouting into Arthur’s ear when the door closes.

Mal releases him, instead looking Eames in the eye. “He doesn’t understand, love,” Mal says, and hugs him tightly. Eames doesn’t even realize he’s crying until he notices the shoulder of her shirt is wet. “He doesn’t love like we love, Eames, give him time. He’ll realize what you’ve been doing, I promise, but not yet. Let him figure it out.”

“I had a plan for this. I should have stuck to the plan,” Eames says, because he could’ve just stretched the Evanthe plot to twenty years and they’d be together in their thirties and it would’ve all worked out in the end. Instead, Arthur will hate him forever.

Mal releases him from their desperately tight hug, walking him into the kitchen and sitting him on one of the chairs, an arm around his shoulders. “Most people don’t feel like we do, darling. They don’t understand the kind of love where it doesn’t matter what you are as long as they love you. They don’t know that desperation. Dom will help him understand, I promise.”

“I just wanted to be near him,” Eames says, like she’s a confessional, one hand wrapped over his eyes and the other gripping Mal’s waiting hand.

Mal squeezes his hand. “I know. You just wanted to see him, to be with him. I understand that feeling, and it’s alright. That’s not what has him so angry.”

Eames takes a deep, halting breath, and on release it sounds far more like a bitter broken laugh than he ever intended it. “Oh, I think it’s at least _part_ of it, love.”

“I know Arthur took Snorkins to the dance, which apparently was because he thought Snorkins was you,” Mal says. “And I doubt that’s the only person you’ve impersonated around him.”

Eames sighs. “To say the least.” He’s not going to even try to explain Evanthe.

“Imagine what it’d be like to find out one of your friends was also four of your other friends. Imagine if half the time you were talking to Yusuf, or Dom, or Arthur even, you were actually talking to me,” Mal says. “Imagine if there _was_ no real Yusuf, and he was just Arthur in disguise.”

“That _would_ be terrible,” Eames admits.

“I know why you did it,” Mal says, and presses a kiss to his temple. “I know what it feels like to love so deeply you don’t even think about what you’re doing. But you _did_ do it, and it was wrong, and you hurt him.”

“But it’s always been me,” Eames says, even though he knows he’s not right in this instance. He knows what’s _normal_ , but he wonders anyway. “Does it really matter what face I’m wearing?” When he looks up, he can tell Mal is unsettled. “What I mean to say-”

“It’s just a body to you,” Mal says, as if tasting the words for honesty. “Your face or body really doesn’t matter, does it?” She tilts her head slightly, intrigued. “I wonder what would happen if you forgot your own body.”

Eames doesn’t have a reply for that. He just has nightmares, and tattoos.

Mal sits down next to him, but squeezes his hand tightly. “It might not matter to you, love, but it matters to him.”

He sits quietly with her for a while, but it doesn’t take long for Eames to stand up and leave the kitchen. Mal doesn’t follow as he heads to the spare bedroom and gathers his things, shrinking them and deciding that it’s worth risking the Trace. It’s only a few months before he can perform magic to his heart’s content with the Ministry incapable of finding him. All he has to do is stay on the run until he’s seventeen, and then life can be everything he wanted it to be, long ago. Just without Arthur. It hurts, but he can survive. He always survives.

Belongings in his pockets, he leaves the room. They’re waiting for him by the time he gets back downstairs. Yusuf looks like he’s done the most crying out of all of them, for some reason, and Dom and Mal are holding each other tightly. Arthur, of course, looks like he’s walking into battle the minute Eames steps into the room.

_Why the hell not,_ Eames thinks, and doesn’t run just yet.

“Is this even your actual face?” Arthur asks.

“This is the default setting, yes,” Eames says.

Arthur nods. “And you’ve been everyone.”

“Everyone that isn’t currently in this room, yes, at one point or another,” he replies. He doesn’t like seeing his friends’ faces in the mirror when there’s no chance of his own beside it. It’s why he’s never, ever shifted into Arthur. Ever. But Arthur doesn’t need to know that.

“When did we actually meet?” Arthur asks, voice half-cracking through the sentence.

“On the Hogwarts Express,” Eames says, and can’t help the quirk to his lips. “I was a girl twice your size, and you punched me anyway.”

“Fuck, I can’t do this,” Arthur says, hands covering his eyes, looking lost and desperate all at the same time.

Eames decides to spare everyone the trouble, since there’s a fireplace with some convenient floo powder next to it. It’s easy, so very very easy to grab a handful and step in while everyone concentrates on Arthur.

“Wait!” Yusuf shouts, but Eames has a long history of not listening to his best friend.

He shuts his eyes, says _anywhere_ , and feels fire roar around him. 

Eames tumbles out of an unfamiliar fireplace, and barely has time to look down and see a vivid patterned rug beneath him before he’s unconscious.

 

Eames wakes up on a bed with one hand tied to the frame and an old woman sitting next to the bed, brown-skinned and curled into herself in the armchair she’s pulled next to the bed. When she speaks, Eames doesn’t have a clue what she’s saying. The woman hesitates, and then says, “Or perhaps you speak English.” It’s flawless English, with just a hint of a Scottish accent.

“I do,” Eames says, and looks around. It’s a small room he’s in, with thick white walls and a small shuttered window near the base of the bed. “Where am I?”

“In my house,” the woman says, straightening out of her hunch just a bit as she frowns. “Do you mean to tell me you came here _accidentally_?”

Eames shifts to sit on the edge of the bed, tied hand still firmly keeping him planted to the same space. “I just said ‘anywhere’ and this is where the network brought me,” he says, and manages to shift around enough to see that yes, he is still in possession of his shrunken belongings, and no, he doesn’t have his wand.

“Well that’s good, at least,” the woman says, and the knot keeping him to the bed loosens and falls to the floor. “Now I can send you on your way to somewhere else.”

Eames can’t help but smile and say, “You don’t think it brought me here for a reason, then?”

“Not one bit, young man,” the old woman says, and slowly stands up from her armchair. “I’ve owled for some floo powder. It should be here in a few days, and then you’ll be on your way, is that understood?”

He frowns. “A few _days_? It can’t take that long.”

“It does here,” she says, and walks out of the room. The years have left her hunched, but she still manages to be strangely authoritative when she moves. “Bring the chair with you when you follow.”

Eames realizes that, oddly enough, he’s really starting to like this woman. He brings the chair, and wonders how, precisely, she got it in the room in the first place. “Do I get to know your name?”

The door opens onto the end of a hallway, one door on the left and one on the right before it opens into the main room and its unusual-looking oxidizing copper fireplace. The rest of the room is covered in cabinets and bookshelves and has the shine of the recently cleaned. The woman stands next to the fireplace expectantly, so Eames drags the chair over and sets it next to her.

“I suppose so,” the woman says, and sits herself back in the chair. Eames wonders if he can actually hear her knees popping when she sits, or if he’s just mentally adding sound effects. “Milagros Mamami. And I’m Scottish-Peruvian raised in England, before you ask about the accent, and no, I won’t tell you how that happened.” She eyes him, shrewd. “And _you_ have English pureblood written all over you.”

“I’m Eames,” he says, because there’s not really any other way to reply to that. “Will you tell me where I am now?”

“You’re in Peru,” Milagros Mamami says. “And the answer is no.”

Eames frowns. “I’m sorry?”

“No, you’re not getting your wand back. Not yet, anyway,” Milagros says. “Excuse me for not trusting random boys with tear tracks on their faces who roll out of my fireplace. You’re lucky I just stunned you, _yuqa_. A few years ago you’d be dead right now.”

“I appreciate it, then,” Eames says.

“Is whatever you’re running from likely to jump out of there too?” she asks.

Eames laughs, bitter, and immediately regrets it from the assessing look Milagros is giving him. “No, that’s not very likely.”

“One of those, then,” Milagros says, nods, and pulls a book off the shelf directly next to her for Eames. “This should give you some good advice. And stay hydrated.”

He’s in Peru with a terse old lady who is giving him self-help books and, after a moment, an automatically refilling glass of water.

“Thank you,” Eames says, and sets to reading in the other armchair.

A few hours later, dinner is a strange but delicious soup shared in near-silence, and Eames does the dishes because he’s a guest and Milagros gives him an expectant look when he thanks her for the meal. It seems to earn him a reward, though, since when all the dishes are put back where they belong she sighs and says _come on, then_ before leading the way to the front door. It takes quite a few keys and unlocking spells to get the door open, but when Eames steps out he finds himself gaping at the outside world.

There’s a green valley a few miles down from the slope Milagros’ house is situated on, but Eames is much more astounded by the mountains. He’s seen mountains before, but he’s never been _in_ the mountains, seen them towering over him and close enough that he feels he could touch the peaks if he just stretched his hand out. The world is pristine and untouched, the only sign of humanity being Milagros’ small house.

“That one’s a volcano,” Milagros comments idly, pointing to the tallest one in the area. “And now you can see why floo powder isn’t just a short little flight away.”

“It’s beautiful here,” Eames says, and smiles at her.

She huffs out something that could almost be a laugh, and says, “Picked this spot for a reason, _yuqa_. If you’re going to ground for the rest of your life, do it somewhere beautiful.” She does look pleased, though. Eames counts it as a win. They sit outside for the rest of the evening, with Milagros summoning the armchairs into what Eames is counting as her front yard. She doesn’t say a word, and Eames just accepts that.

He tries to not think about, well, _everything_ , and sometimes Milagros’ silence helps. Other times, he wants to shout at her until the old woman talks to him, even if it’s to tell him to shut up. He goes to sleep in the same bed he woke up tied to, and wakes up to see she’s back in the armchair, a different book in hand.

“I can tell you want to talk,” Milagros says after a breakfast of cereal and even more water and another hour of silent reading. “I can’t promise I’ll pay attention, or care, but you can run your mouth.”

Eames hesitates, but when she doesn’t even look up, he figures that’s as good of an offer as he’ll get. “I made some bad choices, and now my friends hate me.”

“Then they weren’t friends, were they?” she says dryly.

He shakes his head. “No, it’s my fault. I lied to them in so many ways, manipulated them, and my intentions weren’t exactly-”

“I know you’re a metamorphmagus, _yuqa_ , you can just say you were swapping shape around them,” Milagros says, and looks up from her book to smirk at him. “I’ve seen your wand. I’m old, not stupid.”

“What does that mean?” Eames asks.

“It just means kid,” Milagros says, as if there’s no other way to interpret his question. “Now, why the hell were you stupid enough to tell the floo network _anywhere_?”

He takes a deep breath and says, “There’s this boy.”

“Oh lord, this is why I never had children,” Milagros says, and actually closes her book. “Alright. Spit it out.”

“I may have turned myself into people he knew to get closer to him and ended up making him think he liked a lot of people but they were all me so he only really has four friends but used to think he had a lot more,” Eames says. “And I told him, and he punched me, and he doesn’t want me no matter who I turn into because it’s me inside.”

“About half of that made sense to me,” Milagros says. “You’ve been running around swapping bodies with people to stalk him and he hated you when he found out, yes?” When Eames nods, she shrugs. “I’d hate you too. Give the boy some time. If he liked you in those other bodies, he’ll probably like you best in your own. He probably just doesn’t like the fact you know him better than he knows you.”

Eames groans. “He _does_ know me, it’s just me with a different face every now and then. Why doesn’t anyone understand that?”

“They’re stuck in one body is why,” Milagros says. “Swapping them out like you can seems wrong to them because they can’t do it. It’s the way of the world, Eames. New, different things that are vaguely threatening end in tears or violence, or both.”

Milagros listens to his whining, listens to his frustration and rage and hopelessness, and doesn’t do anything other than listen until Eames finally runs out of steam and sits quietly, noticing the sun is already close to setting. He’s been doing this for hours. For someone so determined to not care, Milagros seemed suspiciously intent on understanding what Eames was raving about.

“What you need,” Milagros finally says, “is a hobby.”

And then she teaches Eames how to be a thief.

She teaches him to _really_ steal, teaches Eames to con people even more thoroughly than before. She teaches Eames the theory behind laundering money, both muggle and wizard, teaches him when to hide or fight or run, teaches him that it’s a good thing he can’t use his magic for another seven months since it’ll keep him from getting bad habits. 

The floo powder comes. Milagros doesn’t mention the little jar next to her fireplace, and neither does Eames.


	7. Chapter 7

“I think you need to know something,” Milagros says after a few weeks of thief training. 

That’s how Eames finds out Milagros’ house is sitting on top of a massive pile of gold and silver and diamonds, a lifetime of larceny upon which she built her final refuge. “I’m nearly one hundred and twenty years old, so I’m obviously not using it. Mostly I just watch it shine.”

Eames looks at the glint of torchlight off the treasure, and absolutely sees the appeal.

“Might as well will it to you,” Milagros says, and leaves him there to stare at the glistening beauty of _so much money_ on his own time.

Eames hadn’t been poor growing up. They hadn’t been starving or living in a run-down manor or anything, but all of their wealth was the family’s final grasp at a once-proud ancient lineage. They were rich in a faded memory of old money way, not a massive cache of beautiful, _beautiful_ loot sort of way. His clothes had been hand-me-downs, but they’d been hand-me-downs of ancient silks and flawless fabrics perfectly intact for the past hundred years.

_Get hold of portable property_ , Eames thinks, and sticks one of the diamond and emerald rings onto his right ring finger before returning to Milagros’ side. But then he also takes a pocket watch whose face has a design of the world made of gold and sapphire and emeralds, with rubies set at the hours. And then he grabs a random necklace without even looking at it, slinging it around his neck because _why not?_

Milagros notices, and doesn’t say a thing, although there is a small smile on her lips. She does, however, have Eames’ compendium sitting on the table in front of her. It’s back at its original size.

“How long are you going to keep running?” Milagros asks.

Eames doesn’t say anything.

She pulls a small folded-up sheet of parchment out of a pocket Eames hadn’t even realized she had. “These are some contacts for you. The best of the worst kind of people,” she says, and puts it on top of the compendium’s cover. “You can keep running as long as you want, but stop hiding in my damn house. It’s built for one.” When Eames’ face obviously shows how betrayed he feels, she rolls her eyes. “You can _visit, yuqa_. Just get out of my guest room and go hunt your boy down to apologize. Stop dripping your teenaged angst and pining all over my carpets.”

“I don’t know how to get back here,” Eames says instead of the many other things he has running through his head.

“’Milagros Mamami’s Peruvian hideaway’ should get you here easy enough. Floo powder’s not exactly precise,” she says, and walks towards him, puts a hand on his shoulder. After a moment, she shifts to press her hand against his cheek instead. It’s the most tender and caring thing he’s ever seen her do. “You’re a liar through and through, but your heart couldn’t be untrue if your life depended on it. Try to not die before me, eh?”

“I’ll try,” Eames promises, and Milagros doesn’t say another word. She just drops her hand, and walks out the front door after snagging a hat and a book.

He waits, because it’s an easy way to waste time. He waits until sundown, and Milagros isn’t back. He goes to sleep – the ultimate procrastination – and when he wakes up, Milagros is still gone. It doesn’t take long for him to accept that she’s not coming back until Eames leaves.

Eames looks between the compendium and the list Milagros gave him. He’d left both on the table, too much of a coward to open either of them until now, when he has really has no choice beyond either of these or yet another random excursion into the floo network.

He opens the parchment. It’s just what Milagros said it would be – names, a small note beneath the name, and address on the floo network. At the very bottom, there’s a tiny scribble, half crossed out and then written again beneath it. _You’re braver than you think._

_Fuck it_ , Eames thinks, and opens the compendium.

The pages at the front are the same, of course. There have been a few additions to the research notes, enough to let Eames know that the club’s work continues on. When he looks at the personal tabs, he goes for Yusuf first, pulling the green page forward and looking through it. The first few pages are the same notes and letters between them, and it’s strange, to see what a true friend he is. Not that Eames ever thought otherwise, but for some reason it makes his chest hurt. He misses Yusuf, far more than he’d realized. He misses having someone he trusts completely.

When he gets to new pages, they start out as frantically scrawled notes. _It’ll be fine, come back_ , they start. Come back seems to be a trend, since there’s an entire page covered in the words – well, _COME BACK EAMES YOU COWARD IT’S GOING TO BE OKAY_ , to be precise. They shift again when the winter break is over, small irritated updates that grow more and more long and frustrated as time goes on.

But the very last page, Eames notices, is dated to a week ago. It’s particularly strange since Yusuf had made a point of at least writing a few words every single day since Eames left, even if they were just ‘still alive, hope you are too’ or, on a few occasions, ‘long day’ and nothing else.

_Something’s wrong with Mal_ , it says, and the rest of the pages are terrifyingly empty.

Eames has to sit down after that. He sits down, and goes to the Mal tab, flipping to the last few pages.

_January 25th, I think?  
To be a lover, Eames, you understand it. The others don’t, they try, but they don’t, even Dom doesn’t know it down to his soul like you and I, where you would change anything for them. You, your body. Yourself. Me, my mind and dreams and desires. I am half of him and he is half of me and we are one and I will never let anything take that away from me, Eames. If you had Arthur you would understand completely. Dom and I will be together, forever._

_January 27th now  
There is no life I would want to live without wanting Dom in it. I will never want anything else, I refuse to. My dreams betray me, Eames. I will change them._

_January 28th  
I love him I love him I love him and you would be able to make them understand wouldn’t you Eames we can translate for one another I wish you were here to make them understand what it is to love someone so ravenously so completely to want to want nothing else_

_January 29th  
If this goes wrong, please, Eames, please make them understand it was all me, it was never their fault. I couldn’t let myself feel that. Only just want to be with him forever._

_February 2nd  
It’s been a while, Eames. I’m not sure what was going on in the past few notes, I was in the infirmary for a few days. I collapsed, but it’s nothing to worry about. I hope you’re safe. Everything’s fine here, although Arthur continues to be a mess. I know you can’t come back, but if you could at least rendezvous during a Hogsmeade weekend, it’d do us all a lot of good._

Eames doesn’t even bother looking at the other tabs. February 2nd was two days ago, and it was a Wednesday, and it’s a Hogsmeade weekend. He tucks everything he owns away in his pockets, miniaturized. After a moment, he goes back to Milagros’ cache and gets a pouch of galleons before heading to the fireplace and not even hesitating as he strides in, and calls out _Diagon Alley_.

 

He’s Eames-as-Evanthe when he gets to Diagon Alley, sixteen-going-on-seventeen Evanthe who he knows like the back of his hand. Evanthe needs clothes, is the primary concern here. It’s strange that the sun is already setting, but he has more pressing concerns. Namely, getting Evanthe into something more appropriate than pants and a shirt and a muggle coat, charmed or not. Eames-as-Evanthe keeps on the ring and necklace, and keeps the pocket watch in his miniaturized coat. It makes the seamstress far more understanding of his rush and brusqueness. The number of galleons he spends on all the clothing helps too.

He borrows a quill to write a note to Mal, puts _COME TO HOGSMEADE, Arthur wil recognize me_ over the entire blank area she’d left on the page from her most recent note. Yusuf gets one as well. After a moment, he flips to Dom’s tab – he hasn’t even read any of it, but he finds the first bit of blank parchment and writes the same note. He’s terrified to open Arthur’s tab, but he’s more worried about Mal than terrified to see what Arthur’s been thinking, but he finds the first blank page and writes it there as well, bigger than in any of the others’ sections.

By the time he floos into the Hogsmeade post office, it’s 4AM and completely deserted. Only a few owls stir at his arrival through the tiny fireplace, but Eames-as-Evanthe doesn’t waste time with that. He brushes the soot off of Evanthe’s new (rather attractive) robes, picks the front door’s lock the muggle way since it doesn’t activate almost 90% of the anti-burglary spells wizards use, and settles himself in the long-abandoned Shrieking Shack for a very short nap. He shifts slightly back into his default form, since it’s only a two hour nap, but not enough that he’ll have to readjust Evanthe’s clothing. Really, this is why he’s learned the benefit of either sleeping in a nightshirt or naked.

He opens the compendium again. Yusuf’s tab doesn’t have a response, and Dom’s doesn’t have a reply either, but Arthur’s page is completely coated in ink, as if he spilled a bottle over the page. On the next is simply, _We’ll be there_. Mal’s page also has a lot of crossed out illegible writing on it, but eventually he gets a sentence of, _I’m looking forward to it! We missed you._

She sounds terrifyingly sane. Eames wonders what she did to herself, and if it can even be repaired.

There’s other people waiting for the Hogwarts students to come into the village, lined around the path. Most of them look like they’re here to meet someone specific. A few are parents, but most of them are older teens or people like Eames-as-Evanthe is pretending to be, who go to a different school and are waiting for a friend or significant other of some type. Eames-as-Evanthe is grateful she gets to fidget and only gets knowing looks and shared excitement instead of suspicion.

The first students come down at 8AM, and he’s not the least bit surprised to see that Arthur, Dom, and Mal are almost the first in the procession. Dom and Mal are watching Arthur more than the crowd, and Arthur is scanning the group with an efficiency that would rival any soldier. Eames-as-Evanthe wonders when he became so much sharper-looking, like a sleek, beautiful knife.

He knows the moment Arthur spots him, because he stops walking. Dom actually runs into him, the stop is so abrupt, but Arthur doesn’t stop staring Eames-as-Evanthe straight in the eye.

Eames-as-Evanthe can’t help it. She smiles, even if it’s a forced, hollow thing, and winks before heading into the areas beyond Hogsmeade, into the snow and trees that aren’t quite Forbidden Forest but close enough to make most people wary. Eames-as-Evanthe doesn’t bother turning to look behind her, because she knows they’re going to follow, because Arthur would probably follow him into hell itself if it meant an opportunity to confront Eames. She stops walking when she finds a clearing with a few convenient sitting rocks, and waits.

Arthur is the first to come out of the woods, of course, staring at Eames-as-Evanthe like some strange alien creature.

“Where’s Yusuf?” Eames-as-Evanthe asks.

“He’s busy.” He pauses. “Should I call you Eames or Evanthe?” Arthur asks, voice oddly difficult to read. It’s not cold, it’s not amused, and it’s not angry. He would label it deadpan if there was the slightest glint of humor in Arthur’s eyes, but there isn’t.

Dom and Mal are there in time for Eames’ answer of, “Well, this is Evanthe, but I’m still Eames inside, so either works.” He pauses, trying to decide how much to say, but decides the more disclosure the better. “Evanthe isn’t a real person, by the way. Well, there _is_ an Evanthe Gibbon, but he’s nothing like this. Really, the point is that I just invented myself a female body and this is it.”

“ _Merde_ ,” Mal says, and Eames-as-Evanthe forgets his own troubles immediately, even ignoring Arthur to walk to Mal and grab her by the shoulders.

“Are you alright?” Eames-as-Evanthe asks, dangerously intent. Mal’s eyes don’t have the cloud of _obliviate_ in them, but they don’t have that same sharp intelligence either. It’s like her eyes are shining in a whole new way.

Mal laughs. “I collapse, and this is what you do? You rush all this way for _fainting_?”

“You didn’t just faint and we both know it,” Eames-as-Evanthe says quietly.

Mal doesn’t look caught. She doesn’t look like she understands what Eames-as-Evanthe is talking about. She just looks confused. “What do you think happened to me?”

Eames-as-Evanthe steps back, but not too far back. She ends up pacing around Mal for a while, noticing that Dom and Arthur are watching Eames-as-Evanthe and Mal silently but intently. “You said you needed me to translate for you,” Eames-as-Evanthe opens. “You said it rather desperately, actually. And now you seem to have forgotten entirely.” He looks away from Mal, to the two males. “How precise are her _obliviates_ these days?”

“You think she wiped her own memory?” Dom asks, looking horrified.

“Precise enough to pick out single memories in an animal and remove them,” Arthur says, rigid in all the ways that tell Eames he’s really Not Okay. “I don’t know how that would work in humans, let alone if someone tried to _obliviate_ their own memories.”

“If anyone could manage it, it’d be Mal,” Eames-as-Evanthe says, and frowns at Mal. “What do you remember of January 30th?” 

“That’s the day I collapsed,” Mal says, and Eames-as-Evanthe can watch the fear and understanding of what she may have done to herself creep into her. “You think I-”

“I’d like to do something very very strange, if that’s alright,” Eames-as-Evanthe says to her.

Mal is justifiably apprehensive. “What?”

“Copy your brain,” Eames says. When Mal still looks confused, Eames-as-Evanthe sweeps a hand through the air. “Legilimency lets me see your brain. I can then morph my own to the exact specifications, but without magical interference, since _this_ version of your brain didn’t have any spells cast on it.”

“How do we turn you back into yourself?” Arthur asks.

“A metamorphmagus naturally reverts to their standard form when they’re asleep,” Eames-as-Evanthe says, and wonders why Arthur suddenly looks so less tense. It’s not like knowing that is going to help Mal. “I’m not going to copy your form, though.” He pauses, and adds, “Ever.”

“I trust you,” Mal says, and opens her eyes wide, fully ready to let him in.

Eames has only done this a few times, and never more than a few personality attributes for a more convincing shift. It’s more than a little bit terrifying, but he is far more scared to think that Mal has twisted her own mind. He dives in and reads every nerve and tissue and synapse, delicately, cautiously, and waits as long as possible before wiping his own brain and replacing it with hers.

 

He wakes up in a soft warm bed, which is surprising. Even more surprising is that Arthur is sitting next to his bedside, sleeping fitfully with his head propped on the mattress next to Eames’ shoulder.

When Eames looks around the room, he realizes he’s in their club room. And then realizes he’s in Hogwarts, and proceeds to try and jerk right out of bed, morphing into Evanthe so fast it makes him dizzy. He doesn’t escape, though. There’s an ice-cold grip on his bicep, and it drags him back down onto the bed the club must have conjured up for him.

“Go back to yourself,” Arthur mutters, and Eames does. He makes it gradual, and finds himself watching Arthur as he does it. He looks unsettled, but fascinated. “This is.” He pauses, clears his throat. “Yusuf tried to explain it to me.”

“What part of it?” Eames asks.

Arthur takes his time answering, but says, “That this is your biology. That you naturally shift from face to face and don’t think of your body as yourself.”

“Of course it’s not me,” Eames says, baffled. “I once gave myself an iguana face to scare my sister.”

“Permanent endless supply of polyjuice potion,” Arthur says, as if he’s reminding himself.

He looks far too rattled for Eames’ taste, so Eames turns in the conjured bed so that he’s facing Arthur head on. “If it makes you feel any better, I find you permanently one-formed people confusing too. It sounds painfully boring.”

“And I don’t understand why you _want_ to shift into different forms,” Arthur says. “Yusuf said-”

“Arthur,” Eames says. He snaps it out, really, but he doesn’t mean to. “If you have a question, ask it.”

It takes Arthur a moment, but he finally asks, “Why do you change yourself?”

“Because it’s easy,” Eames answers, and hopes Arthur will understand how many ways it’s easier. Fewer consequences, more versatility, can do it just because he’s bored. It’s easy, and Eames likes it when things end up being easy.

Arthur nods. “What you did for Mal wasn’t easy, though,” he says.

“What happened, anyway?” Eames asks, and before Arthur can ask, Eames says, “Of _course_ I can’t remember, I turned my brain into someone else, I stopped even existing for a while there.”

He has never, in all the years he has known and obsessed over Arthur, seen the expression that crosses Arthur’s face at that moment. It’s close to the moment when Alphard started dragging Eames along, but he doesn’t have long to look at it since Arthur actually gets up and _runs_ out of the club room.

Eames takes the opportunity to get out of bed and grimace at the fact he’s in Dom’s clothing. There’s another set waiting for him nearby, but since Eames is planning to leave as Evanthe, he doesn’t bother with them.

When the door next opens, it’s Yusuf on the other side of it, and Eames barely has time to greet him before Yusuf is hugging the daylights out of him. “You _idiot_ ,” Yusuf shouts, and Eames ends up hugging him back just as hard.

“You stopped writing,” Eames blurts out.

“She locked me in a room without the compendium, I’m sorry,” Yusuf says. “I’m so glad you’re okay.”

Eames, on the other hand, freezes, and pries Yusuf off him to frown at him. “What happened to you?”

“Mal, she went crazy,” Yusuf said, Arthur quietly sliding back into the room. “I found out she was planning to wipe her own memory, she asked me for a concentration potion, and when I confronted her she locked me in a room, in stasis. I’d been in there for almost two weeks, it turns out.”

Eames gapes at him. “What happened to her?”

“No idea,” Yusuf says.

“You ended up raving about how you’d never leave Dom, mostly,” Arthur says. He looks almost green. “And then tried to attack Mal, but we’re pretty sure that’s because you thought she wasn’t real. I’m not sure what drove Mal to that, though. Whatever it was, it wasn’t good.” He hesitates, but finally says, “We agreed that whatever Mal did, we wouldn’t try to fix it. Not yet.”

“What if it happens again?” Eames asks, far more darkly than he intended, but he doesn’t feel terribly bad about it because _Mal locked Yusuf in a room for two weeks_.

“Then we’ll deal with it,” Arthur says, strangely shaken. His hands clench into fists. “Eames, I need you to promise me you’ll never, ever do that again.”

Eames frowns. “Do what again?”

“Jesus fucking Christ,” Arthur says, and runs a hand down his face, and then honest to god slumps against the wall.

“Don’t overwrite your own brain,” Yusuf says, since it seems he speaks Arthur now. “That’s another identity thing that a non-metamorphmagus has trouble understanding.”

Eames sighs. “I should make you mediate all my conversations, shouldn’t I.” He glances over at Arthur, and frowns, because this is wrong. This is very, very wrong. He kneels in front of Arthur, fully aware his concern is loud and clear on his face. “Alright there, darling?”

“No I am _not_ alright, you have the self preservation instincts of a depressed lemming and don’t even know it,” Arthur bites out, but takes a deep breath and unfolds just enough to see Eames looking at him. “Please don’t erase yourself like that again.”

He considers bringing up the fact he always naturally returns to standard form when he falls asleep, but doesn’t think that’d be a good idea right now. Arthur looks far more shaken than Eames can ever remember. Even when Arthur was screaming at him and punching him, he didn’t look like this.

“I don’t know if I can promise to never do it again,” Eames says. “But I can promise I’ll never do it again unless it’s a desperate situation. Is that good enough?”

“It has to be,” Arthur says, and after a deep breath looks at Eames again. “You’re going to leave again, aren’t you.”

“I can’t stay, not when Professor Browning is an ex-Unspeakable and who knows what else would go wrong with that,” Eames says. “Plus, I’m a year behind on school, and call me lazy but I don’t feel like trying to catch up.” He looks over at Yusuf. “Summer holiday is coming up fairly soon, isn’t it?”

“In May,” Yusuf says, dry, but then perks up. “I’ll be graduating, then.”

And so will Mal and Dom, and with Eames gone, that leaves Arthur alone for his seventh year.

Eames wonders if he should abduct someone and take their place so that doesn’t happen. Arthur would be upset, though, so that’s probably a bad idea.

“We’ll see what happens in May, then,” Eames says, trying to give Arthur the most reassuring smile he can. Really, he wants nothing more than to kidnap Arthur and sweep him away into a life of crime and treasure, but again, Arthur wouldn’t be happy.

Arthur looks ready to say something, but Eames doesn’t let him. He stands up and shifts into Evanthe through the movement, and after a moment of caution before realizing he’s in Hogwarts so the Ministry won’t give a shit, he says a quick spell that shifts Dom’s clothes into some he purchased for Evanthe. “I’ll actually be checking the compendium now, so if you need to talk to me, that’s the best bet for it.”

“Are you already leaving?” Yusuf asks, almost offended.

Eames-as-Evanthe rolls her eyes and walks out the clubroom door, headed for one of the many secret passages out of Hogwarts. Arthur and Yusuf are only a step behind him. “From the castle in which resides an Unspeakable who I know has an interest in dissecting me? Why yes, I do believe I am.”

“Can I help?” Arthur asks.

“There’s nothing to help, other than take down the Ministry of Magic, and that’s a little more of a favor than I’m willing to ask,” Eames-as-Evanthe says. “I’ll be fine, darling, but thank you for the offer.”

“Where are you going to go?” Arthur asks.

“Somewhere I can get lost,” Eames-as-Evanthe answers, and grins. “And, hopefully, rob a lot of people in the process.”

“You can use magic starting on your seventeenth birthday,” Arthur says.

“Indeed I can,” Eames-as-Evanthe says, and actually turns to grin at Arthur. “Maybe I’ll stop by and say hello.”

“Do that,” Arthur says. Commands, really. Eames should not find it as shiver-worthy as he does, but then again, his Arthur tolerance is probably much lower than before. Every word and glance is a gift, and he needs to stop composing sonnets in the back of his head.

Oh, sod it all.

Eames-as-Evanthe stops walking and ducks into a nearby abandoned classroom, allowing Arthur to follow him but quickly closing the door before Yusuf can enter. It’s a rude, horrible thing to do, but he figures this is as good a way as any to get this done. It’s very probably now or never, and Eames refuses to let this be a never.

“You know why I created Evanthe,” Eames-as-Evanthe says, back pressed to the door, watching Arthur intently.

He can see Arthur choose between honesty and playing dumb, watches it in the twitch of his lips before they settle and he nods. “I know.”

“And you know I was more than willing to make you a thousand other people,” Eames-as-Evanthe continues.

“That, I didn’t,” Arthur says, eyes wide. Eames absently notices that Yusuf’s stopped shouting at the door. “You should try just being yourself. See if people like Eames as Eames, maybe.”

He takes that as a hint, and shifts back to himself. Arthur’s lips quirk upwards for a moment at the sight of Eames in a skirt and bra and blouse, but Eames couldn’t care in the slightest. Still, if it makes things easier, he does a quick transfiguration to turn it into male clothing. “It’s not _people_ I care about, Arthur.”

Without the skirt to look at, Arthur looks strangely trapped, watching Eames like he’s a cobra, hood spread and ready to strike. Those apprehensive eyes make any of the righteous determination to just _tell him_ seep out of Eames, makes him sigh and shake his head. “I just wanted to make sure you knew,” Eames says.

By now, he can tell when Arthur’s silences are him taking his time finding the perfect words or when he has zero intention of actually speaking. 

Arthur isn’t planning to say a damn thing.

“Feel free to write, darling,” Eames says, and leaves the room, effortlessly shifting himself and his clothes into Evanthe once more.

Yusuf is waiting, and really, Eames has no idea what he’s done to deserve a friend as good as Yusuf, who takes a moment to sling an arm around Eames-as-Evanthe’s shoulders, squeezing reassuringly. “This is what unhealthy twenty year plans are for,” Yusuf says, soft and warm, and walks him to the secret passage to Hogsmeade.

Eames takes a moment to look at a map of the world in one of the stores’ windows before he leaves. He hasn’t been to Asia yet. It seems as good a place as any to go, so he heads back towards the post office, Milagros’ list in hand. There’s only one name on the list in Asia. He’s not even sure where this Junpei person is, but it’s as good a place as any to go.

Milagros’ note reads:  
 _Junpei_  
Travels constantly but usually in Asia. Best source of information I’ve ever met. Migratory dealmaker.  
‘Junpei’s fireplace’

It’s good enough for Eames.


End file.
